


The Good Life

by loveinkwell



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - America, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Muggle, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Black Family Drama (Harry Potter), Black Family-centric (Harry Potter), F/M, Fluff, Gay Remus Lupin, Gay Sirius Black, Light Angst, M/M, Past Albus Dumbledore/Gellert Grindelwald, Remus Lupin & Lily Evans Potter Friendship, Remus Lupin Needs a Hug, Sirius Black & James Potter Friendship, Sirius Black Needs a Hug, Smart Sirius Black, Teen Romance, The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, Writer Remus Lupin, Young Love, wolfstar
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:20:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 25,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25558738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loveinkwell/pseuds/loveinkwell
Summary: For Remus Lupin, the quiet life is the good life. Flying under the radar at university suits him just fine. All he wants is to spend his days writing, but to pay for tuition, he has to help a professor teach.At the top of his roster is Sirius Black: darling of the prep school elite, dynastic heir to senator and decorated commander Pollux Black.But as the boys grow closer, monsters from Sirius’s world threaten to invade their fragile bond. Grandfather Pollux, tech mogul Abraxas Malfoy, even his socialite mother Walburga are all more dangerous than they look. Will Remus ever get his quiet life back?
Relationships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 57
Kudos: 64





	1. Remus Lupin Doesn't Take Charity

The sun was barely making its way into the kitchen, dappling the scuffed countertops, and Remus was barely two sips into his coffee, when there was a muffled knock on the screen of the open side door.

“Am I too early?” Lily was standing on the stoop with a chipper smile. Her green eyes darted from his sleep-rumpled hair, to his ratty wrinkled t-shirt, to his faded pajama pants, and then finally down to his decrepit old slide sandals. She wrinkled her nose jokingly and commented, “Looks like I am.”

“Hey, at least I’m awake,” Remus protested. He opened the door to let her inside. “Nobody else is. I’d hear Al singing his horrible show tunes in the shower otherwise. And I’m pretty sure Blue would gut you with her paring knife if you woke her up before eleven.”

“Well, that’s why I knocked on the screen to avoid making too much noise,” Lily said pertly. She dumped her tote bag full of textbooks onto the floor with an impossibly heavy thud and took a seat at the kitchen table. “It’s not my fault other people like to waste half the day sleeping.”

Remus poured her a cup of coffee and passed it to her without even asking if she wanted any. Lily Evans always wanted coffee. “You’re not exactly the average college student,” he pointed out with an amused smile. “On your typical day, you’re in the lab until nine at night. Then you take a shower, you’re off to a party with Mary by ten, you’re not in bed until two in the morning, and by eight the next day, you’re studying at the Central. It’s unnatural.”

Lily shrugged. “Some people just need less sleep. It’s—”

“Scientifically proven,” Remus chorused along with her. “Yes, we know, Dr. Evans.”

“Oh, fuck off,” she said, but she was smiling. Lily was one of those lucky people who had known her calling since she was a child, scooping dazed birds off of the sidewalk and nursing them back to health in a shoebox that her mom insisted she keep out in the garage. After earning the top score on the AP Biology exam in high school and a shocking 3.8 GPA on the pre-med track so far, there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that she’d be off to veterinary school right after graduation.

They sipped their coffee for awhile in pleasant silence, listening to the chirping of the birds outside. The chill of the early morning was wearing off into what would soon become sweltering August heat. Lily would complain about it on the entirety of their half-mile walk to campus if they didn’t get going soon.

Remus was not really looking forward to the day. He was slated as the teaching assistant for Political and Moral Philosophy, and today was the first meeting of the course. He wasn’t sure what qualified a sophomore English major to teach philosophy, other than the fact that he’d done surprisingly well in Professor Dumbledore’s intro course as a freshman last year. He’d only taken it to fulfill a gen ed requirement, but it wasn’t a total loss – apparently, philosophers had oddly relevant insights for a writer whose primary curiosity was the mundane. Remus loved finding the meaning in the meaningless, loved coaxing out the characters that were hidden in the ordinary people around him.

Lily, for instance, was an interesting conundrum. She was caring and kind once you delved past her rather brusque exterior, but she seemed to understand how to interact with animals much better than how to interact with fellow humans. Animals were easier in a way, Remus supposed. They wouldn’t be put off if you constantly talked to them like you knew better than they did—which, cognitively speaking, Lily surely thought she did.

Everything in life had to have an energy source, Lily had once told Remus – it was just physics. But Lily’s energy source was invisible and seemingly endless. After a year as best friends, Remus had yet to figure out what drove her to maintain such a pace, what allowed her to focus relentlessly on whatever task was at hand. Further, it was a mystery why Lily even liked Remus, who, admittedly, was languid and mild and required quite a bit of sleep.

When he returned back downstairs after getting dressed and collecting his things for the day, Lily was typing away furiously on her phone. “It’s about time,” she griped, standing up and heaving her tote bag over her shoulder without looking away from the screen. “You don’t want to be late on your first day as a TA, do you?”

Remus glanced down at his watch. “My class doesn’t start for four hours. Who are you texting?”

“Mary—she’s having problems with Gideon again. You know, the senior she hooked up with at the end of last year?” Lily chewed on her lip, squinting at her phone. “She sent me some screenshots and I have to say, I have no idea what’s going on. He seemed really into her before he graduated.” She glanced up, struck with sudden inspiration. “Wait, you’re a guy, aren’t you, Remus? Maybe you should take a look.”

“It’s taken you a year to realize I’m a guy?” Remus asked dryly. It wasn’t that surprising. This sort of thing happened to Remus a lot, and he’d long ago learned not to take offense. It wasn’t that Remus was particularly effeminate as much as he just didn’t go out of his way to assert his masculinity, uninvited, into every situation. That was enough to make it fade into the background. At least, compared to the way most guys went around wrestling with each other, leaping up to do impromptu chin-ups on any bar or branch of an appropriate height, and readjusting their junk ostentatiously as if to remind others—or themselves—that it was still there.

“Oh, you know what I mean,” Lily said, waving a hand impatiently and holding out her phone.

Ah, right—and there was that other thing. Sometime near the end of last year, Remus had admitted, spoken it aloud for the very first time, that he liked men instead of women. It was almost disappointing, how this announcement hadn’t been a big deal to anyone in his life but himself. With his dad having disappeared years ago, his mom as breezy and open-hearted as she was, and Lily responding matter-of-factly like she always did to everything, Remus was left to process the emotional weight of it alone.

Remus took the phone and read through the screenshotted conversation.  
  


_Gideon: Yeah law school is fucking rough haha_

_Mary: Can you video chat tonight? Haven’t seen your face in too long :)_

_Gideon: Can’t, sorry, gotta study. First big exam next week_

_Mary: Text me after then? Tell me how it went?_

_Mary: I’m sure you’ll do great. Good luck!_

Remus looked up, confused. There was nothing wrong with this interaction, as far as he could tell.

“It’s been almost two days,” Lily clarified, “and no response. You think he’s been studying that whole time?”

“Uh, probably not, no.”

“Me neither,” Lily said, “but I don’t understand why he wouldn’t just say the exam was on X date and he’d get back to her at Y time. You know, save the poor girl all that worrying. That’s what I’d do, after all.”

Remus gave her a small smile. “Well, not everyone is as considerate as you. I’m no expert, but he’ll probably just text back after the exam, like she suggested. It’s always better to give people the benefit of the doubt, I think.” He shifted the weight of his backpack, which was growing heavy on his shoulder. “Shall we get going?”

They walked the handful of blocks to campus at the rather brisk pace set by Lily. By the time they could see the columns—a rather forced design choice, Lily pointed out—that flanked the entrance to the Humanities building where Professor Dumbledore taught all his courses, Remus’s t-shirt was unpleasantly damp with sweat. Luckily, though, he still had hours before class. He could sit in the air-conditioning in the building’s lounge, eat his packed lunch, and work on his latest short story.

“You gonna be alright?” Lily asked him as they paused in front of the building. She shot him a teasing smile. “I know you’re a wise old man at heart, Remus, but still. It takes a bit more than that to teach philosophy.”

Remus shrugged. “I’m sure it’ll be fine. Dumbledore asked me to do it, after all. He wouldn’t have picked me out of all his students if he didn’t think I could manage. And besides,” he said, in an attempt at airiness, “I needed a work-study position regardless. You know my mom would never be able to afford the tuition here if I didn’t help her out. She’s had to cut corners at the store to save enough money as it is.”

He didn’t bother to add the part where he’d wondered incessantly all summer whether he got this job because Dumbledore had noticed his worn clothing, his packed lunches, his laptop that was at least five years old and weighed three times as much as the ones the other students brought to class. Maybe that was why Dumbledore had chosen a completely inexperienced teaching assistant who knew nothing about political and moral philosophy when there were plenty of philosophy majors available instead. Maybe it was charity.

Remus’s voice must’ve betrayed something because Lily gave him a knowing look, her intelligent green eyes seeming to read more in his reluctance. “Surely this is better than serving chicken fingers at the Central in an apron and hairnet,” she said softly, putting a comforting hand on his arm. “Less humiliating, at least.”

Remus nodded, but he found himself pressing his lips together harder than he needed to. “Well, I’m used to customer service,” he finally said. He’d been working for his mom in her tiny herbal tea shop in Portland for as long as he could remember, first organizing the stock in the back and then, when he was old enough, working the register. In fact, standing behind that tea counter was how he’d just spent his entire summer after freshman year. “But trying to teach something about life to spoiled rich kids who are texting each under the table making fun of you? Now, that sounds humiliating.”

Lily screwed up her face in a sympathetic way. “I’m sure they won’t do that,” she said. “These are your peers! You might even have some friends in the class! Isn’t it a sophomore-level class?”

“Yeah,” Remus said, and shrugged again. “I guess we’ll just have to see how it goes.”

He gave Lily a small wave as she headed off in the direction of her lab building, tendrils of her long auburn hair drifting lazily in the wind. Then he shouldered his way through the door into the Humanities building, his jaw tense. He wasn’t really happy with this teaching position, but he didn’t have much choice at this point. Regardless of how he got the position, he’d do a good job for Dumbledore and earn his tuition properly, muddling through with grit and determination like he always did. For if there was one thing you could definitively say about him, mild and generally inoffensive as he was, it was that Remus Lupin doesn’t take charity.


	2. Albus Dumbledore Eats Jellybeans in Class

On a typical day, Remus always kept one eye on his phone just in case his mom called. Remus was the only person that Hope Lupin had in the whole world after his father left them more than ten years ago, and Remus worried about her constantly while he was away. In fact, when he was a senior in high school, Remus almost decided that going out-of-state for college was a bad idea, despite being admitted to one of the best creative writing programs in the country. That is, until Hope threatened to sell her shop and drag him down to California herself if he refused to go on his own.

“One day, my son will be a bestselling author,” she would insist, her voice bright. Remus could still see her now, clutching a watering can in one hand, massaging away a pain in her lower back with the other. She’d straighten up from tending to her garden and fix him with a mock scowl, silencing his protests. “Fame, acclaim, and immortalization in the literary canon—how could I take that away from you? Don’t be ridiculous, Remus. You’re going to that school.”

But Remus hated the idea of Hope living alone for nine months at a time, of her hiring random teenagers from God knows where to help her around the store in his absence. So, he checked up on her often, and he always answered his phone when she called.

Today, the lounge in the Humanities building remained oddly vacant after a brief rush of students right before lunch, allowing Remus to write in peace. The story he was working on featured an actor wracked with self-doubt, a character based loosely on his roommate Al. Originally cursed with the unwieldy name Albrecht, he discarded it as his success on the stage grew but ended up losing most of his sense of self along with it. Not Remus’s most inspired work, admittedly, but oh well. Most great novels, as far as Remus knew, didn’t start out as weekly class assignments. This one was due to his professor in a few days and he had to be pragmatic.

At ten to one, his phone rang; it was Hope.

Remus answered at once. “I can’t talk long, Mom, I’ve got class at one. Is everything okay?”

“Everything’s lovely, dear. I’m just making sure that you’re settled in!” his mom trilled. “How’s the new house? New roommates? How’s Lily?”

Remus filled her in on the few notable things that had happened in the short time since he left Portland. He flew the airline that gave out chewy chocolate chip cookies instead of peanuts. In his new room in the little house, there was a tiny balcony overlooking the backyard, where he liked to sit and read in the evenings when it got cool. His other roommate Blue, who’d lived in the house for years, cooked him and Al a welcome dinner using vegetables from her small garden. “You’d like her,” he told his mom. “Reminds me of you a bit.”

The time ticked closer to one o’clock, but Remus didn’t notice the trickle of students passing by the lounge on their way to the classroom at the end of the hall. Hope loved telling Remus about the odd characters who sometimes wandered into her shop—fertilizer for his imagination, she said—and was just finishing up a story about meeting a cobbler who claimed to make shoes for Leonardo DiCaprio when Remus heard the distinct sound of a heavy door slamming shut in the distance and realized that class ( _his_ class!) would be starting in moments.

“Shit!” he muttered. “Sorry, Mom, I’m late! I gotta go.” He scrambled to his feet and shoved his laptop and papers into his backpack, ignoring the painful scrape of the zipper on the backs of his knuckles, and then darted out of the lounge at top speed.

Veering around the corner in the hallway, he nearly collided with someone else who was also late but seemed not nearly as bothered about it. The other boy reached serenely for the doorknob and looked up at Remus, eyebrows raised.

Remus registered a cool, disinterested grey gaze. Strong, elegant brows. Smooth skin tanned brown under the California sun. Dark hair down to his shoulders, bringing out the dark flecks in those gunmetal eyes.

The eyes blinked, and then crinkled with amusement.

At once, Remus became painfully aware of his slight panting, his breaths suddenly so loud that they echoed down the empty hallway. He felt the sweat on his back from this morning, long dried, turn cold. Remus fumbled with the disheveled papers still sticking out of his backpack and willed his heart to stop pounding before this stranger could think he was even more of a freak. It must be a new record, Remus thought viciously, for someone to humiliate himself without even speaking a word.

The stranger was swinging the door open. He stepped back and swept out a graceful arm to indicate that Remus enter first. “After you,” he said, a wicked grin playing on his lips.

Remus obeyed in a daze, feeling a strange swooping in his stomach.

Luckily, Professor Dumbledore was passing out copies of the syllabus to the rest of the class and did not pause to acknowledge the interruption, so Remus was spared additional scrutiny. He slid into the closest seat in the front row and felt the stranger take the seat right behind him. Remus really wished he hadn’t. The thought of those gunmetal eyes trained on the back of his head sent an electric pulse up and down his spine. 

Remus forced his attention back to the front of the room. Professor Dumbledore was writing on the whiteboard now.

_Professor Albus P.W.B. Dumbledore_

“Welcome to Philosophy 210. I’m Professor Dumbledore.” The professor’s voice was gentle, with a dancing lilt, but it carried much more strongly throughout the large classroom than would be expected from such an ancient-looking man. When he smiled, even more wrinkles appeared on his worn face. “If you think that’s a mouthful, I assure you, my full name is worse. But I shall not inflict it upon you today.”

If Dumbledore were in a story, he would write himself, Remus observed with some amusement. Now here was a character who would need very little coaxing, who would come alive on the page immediately. In fact, Remus could’ve written his latest short story assignment about Dumbledore, if only any professor who graded it wouldn’t instantly recognize the unmistakable likeness of his odd colleague.

Tall and thin, straight-backed despite his age, with piercing, all-knowing blue eyes, Albus Dumbledore might have been imposing. However, his gravitas suffered a bit due to his whimsical fashion sense. Today, for instance, the professor was wearing a three-piece maroon suit with a matching white-and-maroon striped bowtie and socks. And if Remus wasn’t already familiar with it from last year, Dumbledore’s beard—bright white, nearly long enough to tuck into his belt, and bisected with a single thin, neat braid—would’ve been shocking. As it was, Remus could hear the faint murmurs of a few students marveling about it in the back of the room.

Dumbledore looked unconcerned by the whispers. “In this course,” he announced, “we’ll examine what we might call ‘the good life.’ How do we know good from bad, right from wrong, what we should and shouldn’t do? Ancient questions asked again and again, but never definitively answered. Fascinating.”

Remus tried dutifully to pay attention, typing away on his laptop as quickly as he could to make sure he didn’t miss any of Dumbledore’s crucial points. As the teaching assistant, he’d have to discuss the content with the students later, after all.

Partway through reviewing the syllabus, Dumbledore paused and wandered over to the unused lecturer’s podium behind him. Perched on the corner of the podium was what looked like an elaborate crystal bowl the size of an ashtray, piled high with colorful jellybeans. The professor peered into the pile, seeming to contemplate what flavor he felt most like eating at the moment, before he carefully selected a pink one, popped it in his mouth, and chewed. “Ah, strawberry,” he mused to himself. “Delightful.”

The silence in the classroom was deafening.

“So, as I was saying,” Dumbledore continued, unperturbed, “Aristotle thought that the purpose of the political was to help people live the good life, to shape good citizens. So, in addition to what is right and wrong, we must consider what, if anything, we owe to one another as fellow members of a society. What should the ideal society look like? Who deserves wealth? Power?”

As Dumbledore ambled back over to the crystal bowl, Remus heard—or rather, felt—the stranger let out a big yawn behind him. His exhale of breath created a slight breeze that ruffled the tiny hairs on the back of Remus’s neck and tickled him fiercely. Then, there was a series of loud creaks from the stranger’s chair as he leaned all the way back in his seat and hooked a foot over the bar that ran between the back legs of Remus’s chair. The foot began to bounce, sending little shock waves through Remus’s body, and Remus felt himself fighting the urge to turn around and scowl.

Dumbledore had finished chewing one jellybean and was now starting on another. “Before we call it a day, I should introduce your teaching assistant for this course, Remus Lupin. Remus, will you…?”

“Oh,” Remus said aloud, jerking up in his chair as he realized Dumbledore was looking at him expectantly. He’d been so focused on the stranger’s bouncing foot that he was caught unawares. Hastily, he shuffled around in his seat toward the rest of the class, carefully avoiding looking at the boy seated right behind him. “Yes. Um, hi. That’s me.” He raised his arm in a half-hearted wave, and then lowered it immediately, feeling rather dumb.

“You’ll have your discussion section with Remus later this week,” Dumbledore said smoothly. “I trust that, if you haven’t done the introductory readings yet, you’ll complete them before then.”

Dumbledore covered a few more things and then released the class. Most of the students fled the room almost immediately, but Remus stayed seated, scrolling through his notes again to ensure that he’d recorded everything. Behind him, the bouncing foot finally ceased and unhooked itself from Remus’s chair. Remus kept his eyes fixed on his screen, not daring to look up, until he felt the stranger finally brush by his arm on his way to the door. He got up quickly then and followed him out, tracking his dark head down the hallway.

From somewhere behind him, Remus could hear two girls whispering and giggling. “Oh my god, can you believe it? Professor Dumbledore eats jellybeans in class! I’d heard he was kind of weird, but jellybeans!”

Remus was a few paces behind the stranger as he took a side exit that led out into the building’s parking lot. Thankfully, he didn’t bother to look behind him as he made a beeline for…

Another boy, tall and thin with a mop of messy hair, was half-sitting, half-leaning back on the nose of a sleek black Lamborghini, his hands in his pockets. The car rode so low to the ground that it was practically sitting on the asphalt; its dark paint glimmered like wet ink in the afternoon sun. “Took you long enough,” the wild-haired boy said, heaving a dramatic sigh. “I thought syllabus week was supposed to be fast.”

The stranger gave him a casual shove with one hand on his way to opening the driver’s side door. “Yeah, well, philosophers can really talk once they get going. Potter, you idiot, get off my car.”

Potter obeyed, strolling around to the passenger side, rumpling one hand lazily through his hair. “Oh sorry, I forgot, nobody touches your baby,” he teased, rolling his eyes.

“I fought hard for my baby,” the stranger retorted, with the air of someone who’d reminded Potter of this fact many times before. “If Grandfather had his way, we’d be riding with a driver in a stuffy old Rolls like two octogenarians or the Queen of England.”

“I think you’d look good in pantyhose,” Remus heard Potter say mildly, right before both the driver and passenger doors slammed shut.

Remus started from the noise and felt a flush erupting all over his body as he realized he’d come to a total halt in front of the car, and the two boys inside were now looking at him through the windshield, probably wondering what he was gawking at. For the second time in an hour, Remus saw amusement dancing in those grey eyes, in that beautiful wicked grin. A Lamborghini? A Rolls Royce? Just who the fuck _was_ this guy?


	3. Sirius Black Drives a Lamborghini

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't satisfied with this chapter, so I did a major overhaul. Check out the new version below!

“Sirius Black, of course,” Mary said without hesitation, pinching off a corner of her croissant. She investigated the piece of pastry, checking her nail polish while she was at it, before popping it in her mouth. She glanced back at Remus and seemed bemused by his blank stare. “In your class. It’s gotta be Sirius Black.”

“Um…who?” Remus asked apologetically.

“Some guy people are always talking about,” Lily said without looking up from her textbook. “Mary and I see him at parties every now and then. Apparently, his family is pretty important or something.”

“His granddad was a major general in the army, and now he’s a U.S. Senator,” Mary clarified. “And I think his dad is some kind of diplomat. Haven’t you heard of them, Remus? Senator Pollux Black? Orion Black? The Blacks are like the Kennedys - you know, American royalty.”

Remus scratched his chin absently. Now that Mary mentioned it, Remus did think he might’ve heard the senator’s name once or twice before on the news.

Lily shrugged. “American prince or not, he seems like an ass. Zooming around campus in that ridiculous car that costs as much as a house—”

“Oh, as if you wouldn’t date someone with a Lambo if you could,” Mary sniffed disbelievingly. “Get off your high horse, Lil. _I’m_ not ashamed to admit that all he has to do is rev that engine and my panties would catch fire, disintegrate, and fall right off.”

Lily laughed. “What about Gideon? Have you forgotten about him so soon?”

Mary rolled her eyes and tossed her curly hair back over her shoulder. “Oh, him! If he’s too busy to text me back, he doesn’t deserve me.” She heaved a deep, defeated sigh and took another bite of her croissant. “No use dreaming about Sirius either, though. Half the girls on campus have tried to get his attention and he hasn’t given anyone the time of day, as far as I’ve heard. Nobody seems to know how to catch his interest.”

“Well, maybe he doesn’t like girls,” Remus murmured, trying to sound casual despite that his stomach was leaping about wildly. He examined the lid of his coffee cup carefully, refusing to look up even though he could feel Mary’s sharp dark eyes fixed on him.

“Maybe,” she said in a teasing tone. “Why? Would you be interested, Remus?”

Remus shrugged and shifted in his seat. He glanced around them, scanning the large open area inside the Central to check for potential eavesdroppers. He needn’t have worried, though; most of the tables in the student union sat empty this early in the morning. The dining counter that supplied fried comfort foods late into the night was still shuttered, with only the small café portion that served coffee and pastries open.

“I dunno,” he finally said, even though he very much did know. “I’m just saying. I saw him with someone. Another guy, with crazy hair—um, Potter?”

“James Potter,” Mary supplied again at once. “That’s his best friend.” She giggled. “If those two were dating, we would definitely know. Sirius might be kind of secretive, but James is a huge loudmouth. Star of the tennis team, won some kind of All-American award last year, thinks he’s God’s gift to the world, you know the type.” She raised her eyebrows pointedly, as if that explained everything and there was nothing more to say about James Potter.

Surprisingly, though, Remus noticed a dusting of a blush spreading across Lily’s cheeks. “Now, he’s kind of cute,” she admitted, looking up from her reading with real interest for the first time. “Potter. Insufferably arrogant, as far as I can tell, but…cute.”

Mary snorted. “Lord, I hope you two get together someday. He needs to be knocked down a peg or two, and our Lily is well-known for her verbal castrations, isn’t she?” She jostled Lily on the arm playfully and grinned at Remus.

“That she is,” Remus replied without missing a beat. “She’ll have his family jewels in the palm of her hand before he even notices they’re gone.”

They snickered into their coffee cups. “Are we going to get any studying done today or are you two going to talk about boys the whole time?” Lily demanded in a mock snippy tone, glaring at the two of them.

“Ah, the famous Evans tongue-lashing!” Mary giggled, undeterred. “James won’t know what hit him!”

“Please, give it a rest,” Lily exclaimed, rolling her eyes. “I’ll probably never have a conversation with him in my life. It’s not like we run in the same circles. What is he majoring in anyway? Gym?”

“Physics, actually,” Mary corrected, reveling in Lily’s shocked expression and shooting her a smug smile. “I’ve heard he’s quite smart.” She wiggled her eyebrows conspiratorially. “Maybe Remus can introduce you two, now that he’s acquainted with Sirius and all.”

At this, Remus felt all the amusement drain out of his body again. His smile fell. “We’re not exactly acquainted,” he muttered. “He just knows me as his dorky TA.”

“Well, is the dorky TA ready to lead his first ever discussion section?” Lily asked, jumping on the chance to change the subject away from James Potter. “Want me to go over your slides with you one last time?”

Remus shook his head. “It starts in an hour. If I’m not prepared by now, I won’t ever be.”

He took a deep breath and tried to calm his racing heart, his wriggling stomach. There was no need to be nervous. He’d never heard of a TA being so bad at teaching that they were fired—and Remus was only nervous about the teaching part, of course. He was not at all worried about who would be sitting before him in the crowd of students, that smirking face looking more handsome than it had any business looking.

_Sirius Black drives a Lamborghini_ , Remus reminded himself firmly. _He’s probably spoiled rotten and can have anyone he’d like. So, you can just calm down, you dolt; there’s no chance he’d ever want you._

* * *

“Morality,” Remus proclaimed from his spot at the head of the classroom. Twenty or so of his students were scattered across three long tables assembled in a horseshoe formation facing him. They were looking at him expectantly, their notebooks out and their laptops open. He found his voice ringing out more loudly and firmly than he expected and was grateful that it didn’t shake. His heart was pounding so hard that he thought he could literally feel his chest moving underneath his t-shirt. “Can anyone tell me what it means to be moral?”

There was a long moment in which nobody spoke. Remus looked around the room at the blank stares of his students, his panic rising. Of all the awful teaching situations he'd envisioned, he hadn't quite predicted this one. Had nobody done the reading? Was it an unanswerable question? Had all his students gone temporarily deaf from a gas line explosion that had occurred right before he entered the room? Had he somehow, without knowing it, asked the question in Swahili, or Afrikaans, or perhaps a rare dialect of Arabic found only in three square miles of the Levant?

Looking back, Remus would realize the pause couldn’t have lasted for more than ten seconds, but in the moment, it felt like a lifetime. Finally, a blonde girl near the front of the class raised her hand, abruptly halting his spiral into internal hysteria.

Relieved, Remus nodded at her to answer.

“Well, morality is about the difference between right and wrong,” she said.

Remus nodded again and let out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. “Good. Yes. Right. The authors you read this week talked a lot about whether human beings know the difference between right and wrong, and how society should be organized as a result. So, what were their arguments? Let's begin with Thomas Hobbes.”

As the lesson continued, Remus discovered that time just worked differently when standing up in front of twenty-odd sets of eyes. The silences stretched, but the hour raced by. After a while, he felt himself relax a bit. The students were attentive and respectful, and he didn’t seem to be coming across like a complete idiot.

It was a blessing, too, that teaching required so much focus, because Remus refused to let his mind wander to where Sirius Black was lounging in his chair at the back of the classroom. Remus had never seen anyone make a plain black t-shirt look so effortlessly good. Thankfully, though, those gunmetal eyes had barely glanced up at Remus in the whole hour and so were posing as little of a distraction to him as possible.

That is, until Remus noticed that Sirius was texting under the table, his phone balanced on his knee and a shadow of a smirk on his lips.

That smirk again. Surely Sirius wasn't making fun of him, laughing at his teaching? Remus knew he had the tendency to leap to conclusions whenever his pride was involved - as Lily often reminded him - but the thought still sent little tingles of anxiety prickling across his scalp and neck. But with so many other eyes on him, he couldn’t stop to wonder about it for too long. He pressed on with the lesson.

“Hobbes didn’t think very highly of humans as moral creatures," Remus told the class. “To him, human beings in their natural state aren't able to act according to right and wrong. In order to create a civilized society, they need to give up their freedom to a sovereign, a Leviathan, who would help to control their worst instincts: theft, war, violence. And to do so, the Leviathan would need expansive powers.”

At the back of the room, Sirius let out a soft huff of laughter, his head still bent and his attention still on the phone in his hands. It was just a rush of air, barely audible, but Remus heard it all the same. He paused, now vexed in earnest, indignation pulling the corners of his lips down into a scowl. He dreaded drawing Sirius's attention - the very thought of it made him feel sweaty all over again - but he couldn't allow students to laugh out loud randomly in the middle of class, could he? If he did, how would anyone take him seriously for the rest of the semester?

“Well, now, here's an excellent example of why philosophers still debate whether humans know the difference between right and wrong,” Remus remarked dryly, surprising himself. He wasn’t sure what was coming over him, but irritation was roaring in his ears and it felt like his body was being hijacked by someone with much more nerve than he usually had. He found himself strolling down the center of the horseshoe formation toward Sirius, and the words, half-joke, half-reprimand, simply tumbled out. “It seems that some of you know that the right thing to do is to pay attention in class. But others of you would probably do well to have a sovereign _to compel you to look up from your phone_.”

With these last words, he came to a halt in front of Sirius, whose grey eyes finally darted up in surprise. A few other students in the class tittered. Remus could hardly believe his own boldness. He held his breath, expecting Sirius to make some kind of snide remark in return, to talk back to the teacher like the prep school brat he most certainly used to be.

Instead, though, Sirius shot Remus a winning grin and sat up straight in his chair. “Does that make you the Leviathan, then?” he asked sweetly. “I apologize, sir. I momentarily forgot what a privilege it is to be ruled by you, how much better it is to be part of civilization than to fend for myself in the wild. No arts and letters out there, right? Just continuous fear and certain, violent death.” 

Remus stared at him, bewildered. It didn’t seem possible, and yet… “You actually did the reading?” he said slowly. But he didn't really need to ask. Sirius was nearly quoting from it directly.

Sirius only winked at him and held out his phone. “Go on, then, take it,” he said. “As the sovereign, you have the power to commandeer it, as well as all of my other property.” As Remus watched, Sirius made a big show of digging into the pockets of his jeans. He produced a black leather wallet, two pens, a few crumpled paper receipts, and a ring of keys. With a clatter, he dumped it all out onto the table in front of him and gestured grandly to the pile of belongings. “You know, sir, I think you should really take it all. It's for my own good. I can't be trusted with any of it.”

Remus tried unsuccessfully to suppress a smile, shifting between at least a dozen different emotions at once. He was still a little mad, but that casual wink had set his heart hammering again. He was impressed with Sirius’s grasp of the content, too, especially for someone who carried himself like he’d never cracked open a book before in his life. And, most baffling of all, Sirius's sense of humor - dry, nimble, and intelligent - felt familiar to Remus. Like they were speaking the same language. Like they weren’t so different after all.

“The sovereign forgives you, _this time_. But I would be more careful if I were you,” Remus teased, meeting Sirius's gaze and holding it bravely. He reached down and stroked Sirius's car keys with mock longing. “It’s not every day someone offers me a Lamborghini, you know. Next time, I might just take it.”

Sirius tipped his chair back and laughed in earnest now, a wonderful sound like a dog’s bark. "Fair enough," he conceded, his hands raised in surrender. "You're a kind and merciful ruler, sir."

Remus turned his attention back to his presentation and clicked on to the next slide, feeling a huge goofy grin breaking across his face. Was it possible that he, Remus John Lupin, had just managed to flirt with Sirius Black? And in public, in front of a classroom full of other people, no less?

Next thing he knew, Lamborghinis would fly.


	4. Remus Lupin Offers Private Tutoring

One Friday evening, Remus was eating dinner with Al and Blue at their small kitchen table when Mary burst in through the side door unannounced, her face shining and her curly hair streaming behind her. “News!” she panted. “I have news!”

Remus was startled, but his roommates seemed unconcerned. Remus guessed that they were used to Mary’s flair for the dramatic by now. They’d known Mary long before Remus did, working with her on a few theater productions last year where she did hair and makeup, Blue made props, and Al, of course, acted. Remus, on the other hand, had only met Mary and her friends near the end of last year, when Lily heard that they were looking for a third roommate and suggested Remus.

Mary flopped breathlessly into the chair beside him and shook his arm in excitement. “You’re gonna love me for this, Remus!” she cried. “Absolutely _love me_.” She clapped her hands together in delight and paused to take a few deep breaths, ostensibly to let the tension build. Then she declared, “ _We_ are going to a party at James Potter’s place tonight! All of us!”

Al exchanged a look with Blue and wrinkled his nose. “Is that supposed to be something I want to attend?” he asked dryly. “Neanderthals with sticks aren’t really my type, Mac.”

“They use _rackets_ , not sticks,” Mary replied pertly. “And tennis is classy, really, if you can get past all the grunting.” She poked Al in the shoulder. “Besides, we’re not going because we want to attend. We’re going as emotional support.”

At this, something clicked into place in Remus’s mind. “Emotional support for who?” he asked suspiciously, feeling like he probably already knew the answer.

Mary rolled her eyes. “You, of course! I have it from solid sources that Sirius has shown more interest in you in the past few weeks than anyone else since he got here. And he’ll be at the party tonight, obviously. Maybe you two will finally get together!”

At this, Al whooped and pounded the table, setting the plates and glasses trembling, and Blue let out a loud wolf whistle.

Remus usually hated it when people made a ruckus over him, but this time, he couldn’t help it—he felt a pleased little blush warming his face. He didn’t know who Mary’s solid sources were, but it was true. Ever since that first week of classes, Sirius now sat in the seat directly behind Remus during all of Dumbledore’s lectures, leaning forward on his elbows and whispering sly little comments into Remus’s ear, making Remus’s skin erupt in goosebumps. After discussion section, too, he made a point to linger after the rest of the students left, chatting with Remus while they both gathered up their things. Each week, they would walk out of the Humanities building together and part ways outside the Central, where Sirius met Potter or some other guy for lunch.

But, as much as it made his insides feel squirmy in the best way, Remus was too cautious to read much into Sirius’s flirting. He didn’t want to get his hopes up; although Remus enjoyed his company for those few short moments each week, Sirius hadn’t shown any sign of wanting more. Plus, having finally admitted his sexuality to himself only last year, Remus didn’t really have any romantic experience. He wouldn’t know where to begin, and it seemed a bit ambitious to begin with _Sirius Black_.

“Who knew that a weedy little underdog from Portland would be the one to swoop in and bag the prince?” Al sighed, shaking his head with a dreamy look on his face. “Now, that’s a Cinderella story if I ever heard one.” He tapped the table in front of Remus’s plate. “Are you taking notes, Hemingway? There’s your next great American novel.”

“Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Remus muttered, ducking his head to hide a smile.

“How’d you get invited to this party, anyway?” Blue asked Mary curiously. “It’s not exactly our typical weekend scene. Do we even know anyone who plays sports?”

Mary paused, chewing on her bottom lip. “Well, Gid’s in town this weekend with his twin brother, and we’re hanging out again,” she finally admitted, looking a bit shamefaced. Remus and the others had the good grace, though, not to say anything about her change of heart. “Fabian used to play tennis with James, and he said he could bring anyone he liked.”

Al clapped Remus heartily on the back. “Well, alright, then. We’ll go—for Remus. But when you and Sirius get married and you inherit the Black family fortune, be sure to throw us all a bone, will you? I’d take a nice lake house for the summer. With two jet skis, at least.”

Blue shot Remus a sweet smile. “A gallery space in Tribeca for me?” she put in hopefully. “And it’d be really nice to meet Oprah.”

Remus burst out laughing. “You guys are ridiculous. Sirius doesn’t know Oprah!”

“Or does he?” Mary wiggled her eyebrows. “Why don’t you ask him tonight?”

* * *

They could hear the party from down the street.

The house, with its floor-to-ceiling glass walls, modern industrial interior, and dramatic floodlights, was packed from end to end with people, flushed and happy and clutching drinks. Some were sopping wet from jumping into the pool in the backyard, slipping and sliding across the slick floor tiles in their bare feet. Others were playing drinking games, diving under tables to chase after runaway balls and sloshing beer everywhere. The speakers in the living room blared with music that made the glass walls vibrate on the thrum of the bass.

As soon as their cab pulled up to the house and the group piled out, Mary and Blue were clutching at each other with glee. “Oh, it’s beautiful,” they sighed. “Like a Hollywood set.”

Lily, on the other hand, caught Remus’s eye over the top of the cab, her lips twisted skeptically. He grinned back at her, knowing they were thinking the same thing. Everyone else might be easily impressed, but they weren’t.

As their group climbed up the semicircle driveway toward the front door, one of the twins elbowed Remus in the side, gesturing to the cars parked around them. “Check out Potter’s new G-Class! Some bastards are just born lucky, eh?”

Remus grunted his agreement, looking around in the driveway for Sirius’s black roadster but not spotting it.

Once they were inside, it didn’t take long for Remus to tire of the whole scene. He didn’t go to parties all too often, and never parties like this. But it might’ve also had something to do with the fact that, although the house was packed with people, he hadn’t yet seen Sirius. The twins had peeled off to join Fabian’s old teammates in a drinking game. Meanwhile, Mary had taken Lily by the hand and dragged her away into the crowd, probably, Remus supposed, to hunt down James Potter. For a while, he sat with Blue and Al on a couch in the living room, observing their surroundings like fascinated anthropologists and passing around a flask of Al’s favorite whiskey. But eventually, he excused himself and got to his feet.

He found himself wandering around alone, half hoping to run into Sirius, half wondering what in the world James Potter’s parents did, that he could live in a place like this. On the first floor, Remus found two marble-tiled bathrooms, one with a whirlpool tub. There was an open-layout kitchen that looked completely unused, as well as a den area with a huge flatscreen TV, a sliding door that opened out onto the backyard deck and pool, and three tall bags of golf clubs leaning together in a corner. When Remus returned to the living room, the party was spilling upstairs now, people gathering on either side of the open staircase to look down on the crowd milling about below. Remus threaded his way in between them as he climbed the stairs to complete his tour.

On the second level, there were three bedrooms and another bathroom extending off the wide hallway where people were congregating. Remus ducked his head into each bedroom, noting the rumpled beds, the discarded clothing and shoes scattered across the floor, and, in the corner of one room, a guitar sitting upright on a stand.

In the last bedroom, a huge photograph mounted on the wall caught Remus’s eye. It was a family portrait, posed in an elegant study. Seven well-dressed people and a large black dog were gathered around a green chair where a severe-looking old man in military uniform was seated, one hand resting on the chair arm, the other hand clutching a silver-headed ebony cane. The entire family had the same cold, gunmetal eyes.

Remus gazed at the Sirius in the photograph, who looked a few years younger but was giving the camera the same irreverent grin that Remus was used to seeing at the back of his classroom these days. It was strange to see Sirius dressed in formal wear when Remus had never witnessed him wear anything but slim-fit jeans and t-shirts with the cuffs half-rolled. Sirius probably thought that dressing plainly would allow him to blend in better with the general student populace, but it didn’t work that well. In Remus’s opinion, Sirius would turn heads even if he wore a potato sack.

“Admiring my décor?”

Remus whipped around. Sirius was leaning on the doorframe, wearing—as expected—jeans and a soft-looking sage green shirt, holding his black leather jacket. Remus cursed to himself. Of course Sirius would emerge at this very moment, when Remus was creeping around his bedroom like a…well, like a creep.

“I didn’t realize you lived here,” Remus tried to explain, feeling stupid. “I thought this was Potter’s house. I came with the Prewett twins.”

Sirius didn’t seem too concerned. “Yeah, I live here with James,” he said as he crossed over to the closet to hang up his jacket. “Frank Longbottom, too. Have you met Frank yet? He’s around here somewhere.” He turned back to Remus. “Sorry I wasn’t here when you arrived,” he said apologetically. “Just got back from a last-minute beer run.”

Remus felt himself blush. “Why should you be sorry? It’s not like you knew I was coming.”

Sirius shrugged. “Mother says you should always greet your guests at the door.”

Because he didn’t know what else to say, Remus glanced back at the portrait that looked down on them, dominating the bedroom space. “Is that her?” he asked, indicating the imperious matron standing at the old man’s right side, her hand resting on his shoulder, her smile serene if rather empty. “Your mom?”

“The one and only,” Sirius said dryly. “And that’s my Uncle Cygnus, and my cousins, and my little brother Reggy. Stuck up brownnosers, all of them. Always tripping over themselves to please Grandfather.” The words flew off his tongue with familiarity, as if he’d said them millions of times before and didn’t quite realize he was saying them out loud now.

Remus inspected each of the faces in turn. Cygnus’s expression was vacant, reminding Remus of the soft, over-fed kings of eighteenth-century Europe. His daughters, meanwhile, appeared sharper. The two with wily, dark features smiled easily at the camera, while the pale blonde one looked skittish and alert. Reggy, too, seemed stiff and nervous; he had a much neater haircut and stood a few inches shorter, but he was Sirius’s mirror image in every other way, down to their jackets and their deep green cravats.

“To tell you the truth, the only one I really like is Padfoot,” Sirius continued, shooting a fond smile at the handsome black dog sitting at the old man’s feet. “Father let me pick him out at the breeder’s when I was eight. He slept in my bed every night until I came to college. Mother didn’t even want him in the family portrait, until I threatened to run away and join the circus if she didn’t include him.”

Remus laughed. “Well, maybe you should take the photo down,” he suggested. “Seems kind of suffocating to have your whole family watching you constantly if you don’t get along with them.”

“I can’t,” Sirius replied gloomily. “It has to be on the wall whenever Mother video-calls me. If she gets mad, she might take away my baby, and you have no idea what I went through to get that car.”

Remus felt a twinge of annoyance. “Well, whatever it was, it can’t be worse than paying for it yourself, right?” he quipped, trying rather unsuccessfully to keep the bite out of his voice.

To his surprise, though, Sirius nodded. “You’re right,” he admitted, looking a bit ashamed. “Sorry—sometimes I forget that escorting four different girls to four different debutante balls isn’t everyone’s worst nightmare, just mine. But Mother promised me a car at the end of it all.”

Remus had no idea what Sirius was talking about. The word _debutante_ brought to mind an image of a lavish ballroom filled with teenage girls in frilly dresses and men in tailcoats and tuxedos. He tried to imagine Sirius wearing a top hat and monocle like Mr. Peanut and suppressed a smirk. “I guess dancing isn’t everyone’s thing, then, huh?” he joked.

Sirius let out a long exhale and raked his hair back from his face with both hands. “Well, the problem’s not so much the dancing,” he murmured, “as it is the girls.”

They stared at each other in silence, those gunmetal eyes with their long, dark lashes blinking morosely, and then Remus swallowed hard. “D’you want a drink?” he asked suddenly. His tongue felt fat and clumsy against the roof of his mouth. “I—I could use a drink. I was just about to go downstairs and get one when you got here.”

To Remus’s relief, Sirius gave no sign that he thought the change of subject was awkward. “Of course,” he said smoothly. “I’ve been slacking in my host manners again, haven’t I? Follow me.”

He led Remus down into the kitchen, where he fished two cold beers out from the packed fridge. Remus seized onto his gratefully, wishing he could press the chilly can to his burning face. He took a rather large gulp and felt a welcome, soothing warmth spread inside his chest, while, next to him, Sirius appeared to do the same.

But then, before either of them could say another word to each other, someone galloped over from across the room and leaped onto Sirius’s back, hollering out a greeting. “It’s about time you joined us, Black! Don’t tell me this is your first drink of the night? Unacceptable!”

Sirius mouthed a quick, “Excuse me,” to Remus and allowed himself to be yanked away by his rambunctious friend, sloshing beer on the floor as he went. The rather brooding mood that’d come over him had cleared, and the irreverent grin was back in full force.

Remus opened his mouth to say something as Sirius left, but he wasn’t quite sure what to say, and, in the end, nothing came out.

Remus didn’t see him again until a few hours later. In the meantime, in an effort to forget his own wretched conversational skills and utter lack of tact, Remus had gulped down several more beers and what felt like half of Al’s flask, and the night slid past him in a blur of activity. At one point, he wandered out to the backyard and chatted with Lily and Mary, who were dipping their feet in the pool and eyeing a wild head of hair standing across the lawn next to the firepit. Then Remus was pulled back indoors to be Blue’s partner in a drinking game. They did surprisingly well, defeating several teams of cheerful, red-faced athletes and earning themselves an invitation to a party the following weekend for a rematch, an invitation that Blue promptly scoffed away. Afterwards, Remus excused himself to the restroom, leaving her to watch Al and Gideon goofing around on the impromptu dancefloor in the living room. But as Remus stepped out of one of the first-floor bathrooms and emerged back out into the hallway, he found himself face-to-face with Sirius again.

Sirius, too, had clearly been drinking. His long hair was thrown up into a disheveled bun, his eyes were slightly unfocused, and his grin was wide and loose.

“Professor Lupin,” he murmured. “I’m so glad you came tonight.”

Remus felt his palms break out in a sweat. “Call me Remus, please,” he protested. “I’m not a professor. I’m your age, for God’s sake.”

“Okay, Remus,” Sirius said agreeably.

They stood together in silence, and Remus could feel himself beginning to panic again before he saw a familiar flash of auburn hair emerge at the end of the hallway. He caught Lily’s eye, pleading with her wordlessly to come and save him. Thankfully, she seemed to get the message and dashed over, dragging Mary along in her wake.

“And what are you two up to?” Mary asked, her eyes dancing. She leaned against the wall with her arms crossed, peering up at them with undisguised interest. Apparently, any subtlety she might have ever managed was gone after drinking one too many vodka sodas. “Hope we’re not interrupting anything!”

Remus groaned under his breath, but Sirius didn’t seem the slightest bit disturbed by her brashness. He simply slung an arm around Remus’s shoulders, his weight a bit unsteady with drink, and grinned down at her. “Actually, I was just asking Remus here whether he offers any private tutoring,” he said playfully. “I could use a boost in his class. Dumbledore gave my first paper a B- and Grandfather was not happy. Apparently, Yale Law won’t want me unless I ace philosophy.”

Lily shook her head in amusement as Remus shot her a terrified look. “Well, of course Remus offers private tutoring,” she said brightly. Her voice had taken on that no-nonsense tone she used whenever she had her eye fixed on a goal. “How about Sunday afternoons? Does that work?”

“He does home visits, too,” Mary cut in, giggling. “He’ll tutor you right in your bedroom. He’s really dedicated to his students like that, you know.”

Remus’s eyes widened. “She’s kidding,” he said weakly, but Sirius was already reaching for his phone.

“Works for me! I’ll text you about it tomorrow.”

He held out his phone to Remus, who only dimly came to the realization that Sirius Black was asking for his number. His heart pounding, he squinted down at the blurry bright numbers. His sweaty thumbs left damp little fingerprints on the screen as he typed, but somehow, he managed the task.

Lily was squinting down at her phone now, too. “Not to tear you boys apart or anything, but we’ve gotta get going. I called a car and it’s nearly here.” She took Remus by the upper arm and began to guide him away. “But he’ll see you Sunday!” she called back over her shoulder to Sirius, who waved cheerfully after them.

Remus stumbled blindly toward the door, tripping over the toes of his shoes with every other step. _Sunday_ , he thought in a mild panic. _Well, alright then, I guess I’ll see you Sunday_.


	5. Walburga Black is Really Something

The next day, Remus, Lily, and Mary met for brunch at a nearby diner. It was somewhat of a tradition for the girls to do this the morning after a particularly wild night, gleefully recounting it over scrambled eggs and hash browns. Remus had never been invited before, but today Lily had shown up on his doorstep to drag him along.

“He caught you loitering in his bedroom?” Mary squealed. “Why didn’t you two just jump on each other right there!”

“Because my life isn’t a porno,” Remus shot back, embarrassed. “It was an accident—I didn’t even realize where I was. Thank god he didn’t think it was too weird. I guess when you have a house party, people end up in your bedroom sometimes.”

“He definitely likes you, though,” Lily put in, piling eggs on a triangle of toast. “It doesn’t really make sense, but he likes you.”

“Thanks,” Remus said dryly. There were times when Lily’s straightforward honesty was less than appreciated.

“Well, at least it’s finally confirmed now, right from the prince’s mouth,” Mary said. “Sirius Black really doesn’t like girls.”

Remus pressed his lips together with regret. He was just now remembering that Mary Macdonald was an uncontrolled gossip. It wasn’t because she was shallow, though. Despite her dramatics, her talent with hair and makeup, and her undisguised interest in romance, Remus could tell there was something more to her. Mary loved listening to the minutiae of others’ lives, relaying it, relishing it—all because, Remus suspected, she didn’t want to talk too much about herself. Remus sympathized with this. He, too, studied the characters around him carefully because he wasn’t sure he would make a great story himself.

“Please don’t spread that around, okay?” Remus said, feeling pained. “He told me that in confidence.”

Mary nodded gravely. “I won’t say a word. But it’s Sirius Black—even the local tabloids sometimes run little tidbits about him on a slow news day. _‘Young Sirius Black looking dapper at the Sapphire Ball,’ or ‘Black heir spotted at hot new restaurant opening.’_ So, everyone will find out anyway once you two start dating.”

Remus coughed, choking on a sip of coffee. “Where did you get that idea?” he protested. “We haven’t spent more than ten minutes alone together.”

“But you will, tomorrow,” Lily pointed out. “Be careful with him, okay? I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

“I will,” Remus assured her, trying not to let her disapproving tone bother him. She was his best friend, of course, but Lily could be pretty judgmental. Unlike Remus, she didn’t quite believe in giving people the benefit of the doubt.

“Enough about Sirius, what about James?” Mary jumped in, her dark eyes narrowed in Lily’s direction. “How did it go with him last night? I didn’t orchestrate that whole run-in for nothing, woman! Spill the beans!”

Lily looked down at her plate and blushed. “It was good, actually,” she admitted. “He was…” She seemed to struggle to find the right words, focusing instead on breaking her bacon up into small pieces with her fork. Remus and Mary exchanged a look, their lips quivering.

“Lily Evans…” Remus began.

“…rendered speechless?” Mary finished.

“We should call the local tabloids,” Remus declared. “Now, _this_ is something they should report on.”

“Oh, stop it,” Lily exclaimed. She reached up to tuck her hair nervously behind her ears. “It was nice, okay? He was a gentleman. He even turned down doing a round of shots with his friends so he could keep talking to me. And he didn’t mind when I left without, you know, without…”

Remus took pity on his best friend’s flaming face and jumped in before Mary could tease her further. “What did you two talk about?”

Lily perked up immediately. “Astrophysics,” she said, her eyes shining. “He told me how they study cosmic particles. It’s amazing, you know. You can’t see some of these particles, even with telescopes—they’re way too small and travel way too fast. But they leave little traces of energy behind and disturb the particles around them in certain patterns. So, you use those clues to piece together where they’ve been. Like he said, ‘ _The universe is one big puzzle,_ _and I’m going to figure it out._ ’”

“Arrogant much?” Remus joked. “Sounds like someone has a god complex.”

“No,” Lily protested, “it’s not like that at all! He says astrophysics is half math, half faith. You can’t see the thing, so, at some point, you have to take it on faith that your math is right.” She sighed. “Sometimes I feel like I could use a bit more faith in my life, actually. I don’t trust anything I can’t see for myself, under a microscope or otherwise.”

Mary raised her eyebrows. “Oh my god, do I sense…respect? For James Potter?”

Lily simply shrugged and took another bite of toast, but Remus could tell that this was a huge breakthrough. A breakthrough, perhaps, of astronomical proportions.

* * *

On Sunday afternoon, just as Remus arrived at Sirius’s house, he heard a hideous screech of tires against pavement coming from down the street. He turned around to see James Potter’s dark green SUV whipping around an impossibly sharp turn and veering into the driveway with all three housemates inside.

Before the car had fully come to a stop, Sirius leaped out of the passenger seat and ran up the driveway toward Remus. He was dressed in crisp blue pants and a grey polo, and his hair was pulled back neatly under a grey baseball cap. “Sorry,” he said breathlessly, digging in his pockets for his keys. “We played a round of golf at the club this morning and it ran a bit late. James took forever—feel free to give him shit about it later. I hope you weren’t waiting long?”

“No,” Remus assured him. “I just got here.”

Because Sirius didn’t indicate what else he should do, Remus continued to trail behind him as he walked through the house and up the stairs. Once they entered his bedroom, Sirius tossed his baseball cap onto the desk and shook his sweaty hair loose. “D’you mind waiting here while I get a quick shower?” he asked Remus. “I won’t be long. If we’re going to hang out for the rest of the day, I really prefer I was clean for it.”

“Oh! Yeah, sure, go ahead,” Remus mumbled, feeling awkward. He wished he’d thought to stay downstairs in the living room. “Should I just…sit here?” He indicated the chair at Sirius’s desk.

“Sure, why not. Be right back!” Sirius grabbed a pair of boxers from the dresser and then disappeared out into the hallway in the direction of the bathroom.

Remus took a seat and waited, trying hard not to meet the severe gaze of Sirius’s photographed relatives on the wall. Their expressions seemed somehow even colder and more condemning without Sirius’s warm presence. Luckily, though, Remus wasn’t left alone with them for long. It couldn’t have been more than four minutes until Sirius came back into the room wearing a fluffy white hotel robe and vigorously toweling at his wet hair.

Remus had barely begun to let his imagination run wild about what was under the robe, when a loud ringing sound erupted from the open laptop on the desk. Remus yelped and nearly jumped out of his skin, slamming his knee painfully on the chair. “What the—?”

Sirius emerged from underneath the towel, laughing. “It’s just a video call,” he said, ducking into his closet. The laptop rang again. “Can you answer it and just tell them I’ll be right there?”

Remus peered at the screen. To his horror, the miniature photo that had popped up featured a familiar-looking imperious woman, and the name underneath read, “Walburga Black.”

“I-It’s your mom,” Remus stammered, his face growing hot as the ringing noise sounded yet again, insistently demanding their attention.

“Well, if it’s Mother, then you have to answer it,” Sirius said from inside the closet, his voice slightly muffled as he rummaged around for something to wear. Remus couldn’t tell whether he was joking or not. “I’ll be right there, I promise.”

Remus cringed. He really, really didn’t want to talk to Walburga, but he also didn’t want Sirius to think he was so chicken that he was afraid of his mother. Holding his breath, he reached out and clicked the green button.

The woman that materialized on the screen wore a tan wool beret over her dark hair and a matching tan wool cape coat. A patterned silk scarf was knotted at her throat and pea-sized diamond studs twinkled in her ears. Sitting in what looked like the leather backseat of a town car, Walburga Black stared into her phone and right at Remus, her cold eyes appraising. He felt suddenly underdressed in his Pink Floyd band shirt, and it was little comfort that he had at least remembered to comb his hair.

“Hello,” Walburga said politely. Her eyebrows drifted upwards a fraction of an inch, but she otherwise showed no sign of surprise at seeing him. When Remus didn’t speak, she continued, “And who are you?”

“He’s Remus,” Sirius called out from inside the closet. “My tutor.”

“Remus Lupin,” Remus echoed. His voice came out croaky, and he coughed to clear his throat. “It’s, uh, nice to meet you, Mrs. Black. Sirius should be along in just a minute.”

“Lupin,” she repeated softly. “Lupin. I don’t believe I’ve heard of your family, Remus.”

“Well, I’m from Portland,” Remus began.

“You wouldn’t have heard of them,” Sirius interjected, an edge in his voice. “His mother owns a business.”

Though Walburga’s smile remained pleasant and unmoving, Remus imagined that her patience for listening to her son’s disembodied voice shout at her while looking at a disheveled, nervous stranger was wearing thin. Remus longed to duck out of sight, but he knew he couldn’t be so rude as to leave her to stare at an empty chair.

“Ah. New money, then? Well, I’ve always told Sirius that college is the time to see how the rest of the world lives,” Walburga said evenly. “You know, to broaden his horizons.”

Sirius let out an exasperated sigh as he finally emerged from the closet, clutching jeans and a sky blue t-shirt. “Mother, for God’s sake, can’t you be nice?” He met Remus’s eye and winked. “I like Remus.” 

A muscle in Walburga’s cheek twitched. “Oh, Sirius, I don’t mean anything by it. Give your old mother some credit, will you? Yes, it’s true that I usually despise the nouveau riche. Most of the time, they’re people who get lucky once in business and never develop good taste. All that plastic surgery, and the obsession with baroque design…” She shuddered dramatically. “So much yellow gold. But, no, Remus doesn’t strike me as that type, darling. He doesn’t have the right complexion for yellow gold.”

“Um,” Remus said, his head spinning as he tried to figure out whether he was being insulted or complimented. He attempted to think of something intelligent to say in response, but it didn’t help his brain function in the slightest that, out of the corner of his eye, he could see Sirius in nothing but boxers, hopping on one foot and then the other to pull on his jeans. Remus was tempted to turn his head to get a proper peek, but with Walburga’s gaze still on him, he thought better of it.

Sirius’s mother sniffed. “Well, as lovely as it’s been to chat with you, Remus, I did call to speak to my son, if that’s alright.” Her tone was light, but it clearly suggested that this was the end of Remus’s part in the conversation, whether it was alright with him or not.

Remus swallowed and cast an uncertain look at Sirius. “He was just showering after golfing this morning, he’s—”

“Changing,” Sirius supplied, finally, _finally_ ducking into the camera frame. He reached up to gather his wet hair into a bun, sending a small shower of water droplets across the back of Remus’s neck. He was still naked from the waist up, though he’d draped the t-shirt over one shoulder, evidently to put on later. “Hello, Mother—what a nice surprise.”

Half-naked and alone with a strange boy in his bedroom… Remus couldn’t help but wonder whether Sirius was trying to send a message to his mother. But there was nothing for Remus to do but excuse himself, scoot out of camera range, and try not to stare.

Sirius dropped into his vacated chair. _Sorry_ , he mouthed at Remus. _Be done soon._

Remus swallowed a groan. _She can see you_ , he wanted to point out. But instead, he made a beeline for the bedroom door and ducked out into the hallway.

“Darling, I just had lunch with Euphemia Potter, and she’s hosting an event for some west coast retailers out near you next month,” Remus heard Walburga say as he closed the door behind him. “She’s reserved two plates for you and James, so save the date. Also, I wanted to remind you to give Uncle Ab a call. He hasn’t heard from you since the school year started.”

Out in the hallway, Remus found himself face-to-face with Frank Longbottom, who was still dressed in golf clothes and clutching a water bottle. Remus had only glimpsed Frank earlier from across the driveway, but he saw now that Frank had curly brown hair and a kind, good-natured face.

“Hey,” Frank greeted him. “Do you know if Sirius is out of the shower yet? I hate the water pressure downstairs.”

“Oh, um, yeah.” Remus jerked his head toward the closed bedroom door. “He’s on a call with his mom.”

Frank paused mid-step and took a swig from his water bottle. “You didn’t have the distinct pleasure of making her acquaintance, did you?” he whispered, grimacing. “Walburga Black is…well, she’s really something.”

Remus gave Frank a wry smile. “It’s fine. I’ve endured much worse than being called nouveau-riche.”

Frank laughed. “Don’t worry, I’m not up to snuff in her eyes either. No matter how many years I stay friends with Sirius, no matter how good my golf game gets, Walburga will never forget that I got into the Academy off the waitlist after Charlie McLaggen landed himself in rehab. Naturally, Sirius had _his_ Academy spot reserved before birth. Well, anyway, trust me. The Longbottoms don’t have anything close to the Blacks’ political clout or the Potters’ cosmetic empire.”

“The Lupins don’t really have anything at all,” Remus muttered.

Frank’s face softened. “Look, that doesn’t matter to Sirius,” he said in a low voice. “His family scares a lot of people off, but he’s a good guy. He really tries.”

Remus nodded, feeling suddenly bashful. But before either of them could say anything more, Sirius burst out of his bedroom carrying a folder and several philosophy books, and Frank hastily excused himself down the hallway.

“Sorry about that. I just need to answer whenever Mother calls me or she gets kind of crazy,” Sirius explained sheepishly. “One time last year I forgot to return her call for a few hours, and she had Uncle Ab send his helicopter to campus to check on me.” He shuddered. “It landed on the quad between classes and made such a scene. And when I got mad about it, she just said, ‘Well, darling, I wouldn’t have to worry if you picked up the phone.’”

His terrible, unctuous imitation of his mother’s posh voice brought grins to both of their faces, but Remus couldn’t help but feel for Sirius. It seemed he was up against more than Remus initially realized. There were times when Remus felt his own mom was a little crazy, too, but it was more in a few-screws-loose kind of way than a trigger-an-international-manhunt kind of way.

“Nice shirt, by the way,” Sirius said as they trooped downstairs to the kitchen and settled in at the table. “One of my favorite bands. You like Pink Floyd too?”

Remus nodded, his spirits lifting. A dry sense of humor, and now, a love of Pink Floyd: this brought the total number of things he had in common with Sirius to two, which was, to be honest, two more things than he’d ever expected.

“Favorite song?” Sirius asked.

Remus hummed, considering the question. “I know it’s kind of a common answer, but I have to go with _Comfortably Numb_ ,” he said. “There’s a reason everyone likes it. What about you?”

Sirius didn’t hesitate. “ _Have a Cigar_ ,” he replied instantly. “Nobody talks about it—it’s always overshadowed by _Wish You Were Here_ —but it’s such an underrated song. Every time I hear it, I just wanna leap up onto the nearest table and air-guitar that solo at the end.”

“A great solo,” Remus agreed with a laugh.

Sirius smiled at him. “You’re not afraid to give the answer everyone else gives,” he observed thoughtfully. “I admire that.”

Remus shrugged, bemused. He’d never thought it was anything extraordinary to give the answer everyone else gave. In fact, it was, by definition, ordinary. “Well, it’s easy to blend into the crowd,” he replied. “I’ve been doing that for my whole life. But it’s harder to stand out.”

Sirius flipped mindlessly through one of his dog-eared philosophy books, looking pensive. “I dunno,” he said. “I think it’s brave to allow yourself to fit in if that’s what makes you happy. I’ve never been able to do that. I always have to give the answer nobody wants to hear.” He pulled out a sheaf of papers from his folder and passed it to Remus. “I mean, just look at this essay,” he joked, pointing to the large B- marked in red ink at the bottom. “Seems like I gave Dumbledore an answer he didn’t want to hear, doesn’t it?”

Remus took his time reading through the essay. “So, you wrote about John Locke,” he said when he was finished. “And you didn’t agree with his ideas about liberty?”

“Yeah,” Sirius said. “Locke says everyone has certain natural liberties from birth, including the liberty to enter into a social contract—to opt into being ruled by a government. But that kind of liberty is a false premise. I mean, take us, for example. We were born into our government, but I don’t remember opting into it. And yet, I have to drive the speed limit, and I have to run from the cops when we get busted for underage drinking—”

“Ah, yes, all of life’s major inconveniences,” Remus cut in dryly.

Sirius chuckled. “I’m serious, though! To me, it doesn’t feel like we have much liberty at all. It feels like we’re stuck with the circumstances we’re born into, and we’re never really given the chance to opt out.”

Remus watched in fascination; as Sirius talked, his eyes flashed with something dark and furious. “It’s an interesting idea,” Remus mused, giving him an encouraging nod. “Tell me more.”

“Well, think about it,” Sirius insisted. “It’s not just the government that lays down rules. What about our parents? The university? Society? There are rules everywhere. We’re born into them, we never consented to them, and yet we can’t get away from them. And Locke doesn’t give an answer for that. I mean, what does liberty mean when there’s so much in our lives we haven’t consented to?”

Remus sensed, without Sirius quite having to say it, that Sirius was no longer talking about political philosophy. He was talking about his position as the Black family heir. Remus scratched absentmindedly at his eyebrow, thinking hard. Why was Dumbledore not convinced by this argument? What was missing?

He opened Sirius’s copy of _Second Treatise on Civil Government_ and thumbed through it until he found the passage he wanted. Leaning over the corner of the table, he showed Sirius and they read it together, their heads bent close together. Sirius smelled like his shampoo, clean and sharp like arctic air, and the scent took the breath right out of Remus’s lungs.

“See, I think this is the answer Dumbledore wants to hear,” Remus murmured, tapping the page. “You’re not quite right: Locke _does_ provide an answer for those who are born into constraints and rules that they don’t wish to consent to. Locke would say that those people still have the ultimate liberty—the liberty to leave.”

His words hung in the air, and Sirius was quiet for a long time. Remus waited patiently while Sirius re-read the passage, stopped to think, scribbled down some notes in the margins of his paper, and then re-read it again.

Finally, he looked back up at Remus. “Thanks,” he said solemnly. “That actually helps a lot.”

“Hey, don’t act so surprised that your tutor is full of wisdom,” Remus joked. “Isn’t that why you asked me here?”

To Remus’s surprise, though, Sirius blushed. “I dunno,” he muttered, dropping his eyes back down to his book. “I thought maybe you wanted to hang out with me. Your friends made it seem like—”

“I do! No, I do,” Remus backtracked hastily. “I was just kidding.” Before he could lose the courage, he reached out and put a reassuring hand on Sirius’s forearm. Belatedly, he realized his fingers were cold with nerves and wished he’d thought to warm them up somehow. He hoped Sirius didn’t think he was some kind of vampire.

But Sirius didn’t seem to notice his icy fingers. He simply glanced at where Remus was touching his skin, and then to where Remus sat frozen, waiting for his reaction. The air between them hummed with a frisson of excitement.

But just as suddenly as the tension grew, it evaporated as loud footsteps came thundering down the stairs. “Everybody decent?” the teasing voice of James Potter sang out. By the time James poked his head of wild hair around the corner, Remus had long withdrawn his hand.

“No, you idiot, we’re butt naked and dragging our sweaty balls across the leather upholstery,” Sirius retorted. “What do you want?”

“Hungry,” James said, sauntering over to them with a wide grin. “Frank and I are going to In-n-Out—just seeing if you two wanted to come. Plus, I’m the last one to meet your new friend and I’m feeling left out.”

Remus took the friendly hand that James offered and shook it.

“You know, Remus,” James added casually, “I had the pleasure of meeting your friend Lily the other night.”

“And he hasn’t shut up about her since,” Sirius interjected, rolling his eyes. “Stop trying to play it cool, Potter—you’re not fooling anyone. He’s obsessed with her,” he added to Remus in a dramatic whisper.

Without warning, James launched himself at Sirius and wrapped him in a playful headlock. “Oh, yeah?” he growled, scowling. “I’ll show you obsessed!”

There was a brief scuffle as Sirius allowed himself to be dragged off of the chair, his socks sliding across the kitchen tiles. “Alright, alright, I concede,” he finally gasped out as he mock struggled out of his captor’s grip, giving James a shove for good measure. “You need a win, anyway, after your dreadful showing out on the green today.”

“Nah, just an off day,” James said, shrugging with the unconcerned air of someone who won so often that a single loss meant little. “So, In-n-Out?”

“Sure,” Sirius said. “We’ll meet you guys there. Remus can ride with me.”

“Allowed to ride in the Lambo already?” James asked, raising his eyebrows. “You must really be someone special, Remus.”

Remus couldn’t help the smile that spread across his face. He’d met both of Sirius’s friends, survived his mother, touched his arm, and earned passage in his car, all in a single afternoon. He might not have much romantic experience, but even he could tell that things were looking good.


	6. Sirius Black Has Never Gone Mini Golfing

“Hey, Remus?” Sirius blurted out suddenly one day as they left the Humanities Building together after Dumbledore’s lecture. “Why d’you never say yes to anything?”

Remus blinked in surprise. This question seemed to come out of nowhere. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, I’m always asking you to do things, and you never take me up on it.”

“Like when?”

“Like last week, I asked if you wanted to take a ride out to the beach with me after class,” Sirius said. “I even promised I wouldn’t drive too fast—precious cargo and all. But you said you were busy.”

“Well, it _is_ like _The Fast and the Furious_ with you sometimes,” Remus muttered, only half-teasing. But in truth, he wasn’t afraid of Sirius’s wild driving; he just didn’t like being in Sirius’s car. After that first trip to the In-n-Out drive through, the exhilaration of riding in the Lamborghini had quickly worn off as Remus realized that he simply didn’t belong there. His old shoes tracked dirt onto the immaculate black floor mats. The roadster’s bucket seats were so low to the ground that he had to flop around like a beached sea lion in order to clamber out. And if that weren’t bad enough, his sweaty skin stuck to the leather upholstery and made unattractive fart noises whenever he shifted around.

Thinking this way made Remus feel like the biggest grinch, so he hadn’t admitted to anyone that he didn’t like the Lamborghini. But he couldn’t help it. It made him feel like some kind of awkward Cinderella, driving around in a low-riding black leather carriage when he would’ve looked less out of place in a pumpkin.

“And what about our ski weekend next month with Frank’s girlfriend Alice?” Sirius continued. “I invited you along, and you just said—”

“That I don’t really ski,” Remus supplied. “Yes, I remember. Not everyone can afford to just fly to Aspen for the weekend.”

Sirius was quiet for a moment then, looking chastened. Remus let out a silent breath of relief when Sirius didn’t offer to pay for his plane and ski lift tickets. Even if Remus were the kind of person who’d accept such gifts—and he absolutely wasn’t—the two of them didn’t know each other nearly well enough for that. It seemed like a horrible way to start off a…well, a whatever-this-was between them.

“Okay, well, what about yesterday?” Sirius pressed on stubbornly. “I asked you out to Westmoor to golf with us and you didn’t come then, either. You would’ve been my guest, same as everyone else.” It was almost cute, the way Sirius’s lower lip stuck out and he tugged on the straps of his backpack like a petulant child. He shot Remus a stealthy glance out of the corner of his eye. “One might start to think you don’t want to spend time with me.”

“It’s not that,” Remus said, swallowing a frustrated sigh. The irony did not escape him that he and Sirius were having this particular fraught, awkward conversation on the very same day that Dumbledore’s lecture had focused on the philosophy of wealth distribution. It seemed that Sirius had been too busy murmuring flirtatiously into Remus’s ear to pay attention in class, because he didn’t recognize the subtext of their current conversation and Remus really didn’t want to have to spell it out for him. “Look, Sirius, I just don’t know how to golf—unless you count mini golf.”

Sirius seemed puzzled. “I’ve heard of mini golf, but I’ve never actually seen it. How small is it, exactly?”

This startled a chuckle out of Remus. “You’ve never gone mini golfing? How is that possible? It’s a quintessential high school experience, even on the east coast.” Sirius shrugged, and Remus felt himself cheer up a bit. “Well, that’s something we can do together,” he said eagerly. “It doesn’t require any skill. If you can use a putter, you can play mini golf.”

“‘ _If you can use a putter_ ,’” Sirius repeated in a good-natured grumble. “I’ve been golfing since I could walk. I was so good that, in high school, Grandfather used to take me to Augusta and show me off to his friends.”

Remus raised his eyebrows. Of course Sirius would’ve played on the most exclusive golf course in the country as a teenager. “Well, then, you should have no problem beating me at mini golf tonight,” he said. “Care to wager? Loser buys dinner—hot dogs from the stand on the boardwalk.”

Sirius grinned and stuck his hand out for Remus to shake. “You’re on! I love hot dogs!”

Remus let out another surprised chuckle. “Really?”

Sirius shrugged. “Mother never let me have them growing up. She never let me have anything good. She always wanted me to eat what the adults ate. Once, when I was six, she tried to force me to eat escargot at a state dinner and I spat them all, one by one, into her handbag when she wasn’t looking.”

Remus burst into true laughter then, and all grumpy thoughts about the rich and famous temporarily fled from his head.

That night, the sun was descending into the ocean in a round blaze of vermillion and the evening air was cooling when they arrived at the mini golf course on the boardwalk. Sirius peered, bemused, at the façade of the small shack where they paid for their eighteen holes. It was decorated in the likeness of a roaring lion, with the cashier’s opening situated squarely in the gaping mouth. “Adventure Safari Mini Golf?” he read aloud from the sign. “Is this a zoo, too, then?”

Remus laughed. “Not exactly,” he said mysteriously. “But you’ll see where the animals come in soon enough.” He handed Sirius a neon green golf ball and a putter, and suppressed more laughter as Sirius flipped the putter upside-down to peer curiously at the stumpy rubber piece on the end. “What’s the matter?” he teased him. “Losing confidence in yourself?”

“You wish!” Sirius retorted, racing ahead excitedly down the path, through the gate and toward the start of the course.

The first hole was decorated with a row of gaudy plastic elephants, each holding the tail of the next elephant within a curled trunk. To get to the hole on the other side, the golf ball simply had to navigate around them. Remus held his breath as Sirius bent down to investigate the “green,” which was nothing more than a strip of dirty dark green felt. He knew Sirius well enough by now to be fairly certain he wouldn’t disparage something for being tacky and low-brow, but there was still a lot lingering uncomfortably between them—not least, that damn Lamborghini and a trip to Aspen.

But he needn’t have worried; Sirius set down his ball, straightened up, and lined up his shot as cheerfully as ever. “A new material for the green, huh? Challenging, but no match for me,” he commented with his usual irreverent grin.

Even so, Sirius underestimated the slickness of the felt and made his first stroke with way too much force. His ball shot forward, ricocheted off of the back wall, and returned toward them to settle at the base of one large elephantine foot.

When it was Remus’s turn, he used a far gentler tap, and his electric blue ball glided right past Sirius’s green one and toward the hole. “Felt doesn’t offer much friction,” he informed Sirius with a playfully smug smirk.

But Sirius simply shrugged with an utter nonchalance reminiscent of James. “I see that now. But don’t worry, I’m a quick study—I’ll adjust.”

And he did, finishing off the hole with only one extra stroke over Remus.

The second hole was dominated by a pair of faux rainforest trees filled with monkeys. The main obstacle seemed to involve guiding the ball through the small opening between their closely entwined trunks, but Remus had played this particular mini golf course with Lily before and knew the hidden secret embedded in this hole. As Sirius lined up his shot, Remus pressed down on the nearby metal pedal with his foot, and somewhere within the trees, the mechanics whirred to life and the monkeys began to move.

“Hey!” Sirius whirled around, his eyes sparkling with mirth. His ball had rolled smoothly toward the opening between the tree trunks, only to be rebuffed at the last moment by the cheeky tail of a moving mechanical monkey. “I didn’t know that was part of the game!”

Remus chuckled. “Well, now you know.”

Sirius had a hard time getting past the monkeys, and an even harder time with the next hole, where a line of hungry mechanical hippos chomped down on the green in a rhythmic pattern, halting the progress of any golf ball unfortunate enough to be trapped by their mouths. Despite his struggles, Sirius seemed to love it. Each time a hippo closed over his ball, he’d release an amused expletive and shake with belly laughs that made Remus’s chest expand with warmth. By the time they’d finished half the course, Sirius was at seven strokes above par, and five strokes above Remus—but, Remus noted with satisfaction, his face was flushed with glee.

They’d just completed the tenth hole when Sirius’s cell phone rang. When he saw who it was, he frowned. “I’m really sorry, Remus, but I should take this,” he said, excusing himself to a nearby bench. “I won’t be long.”

Remus waited, and when Sirius returned several minutes later, the pleased flush had disappeared, and his shoulders were slumping.

“Well, that was my father,” he said. “Calling from Istanbul to say he’s too busy to come home for the holidays this year.” His voice had a sharp edge to it, as if it were taking him some effort to keep it steady. “This’ll be the second year in a row, so I’m not that surprised, but Reg is gonna be crushed.”

Remus hummed sympathetically. “Your dad already knows he’ll be busy until the new year?”

Sirius set his mouth into a hard, unhappy line. “He says he’s in the middle of negotiating a treaty and can’t get away long enough to make the trip worth it. Not sure what kind of diplomatic emergency could be so pressing in the Balkans. Didn’t they sort out their problems ages ago?” he joked weakly, trying for a wan smile. The corners of his lips fluttered up and then drooped back down. “Anyway, don’t worry about it. Let’s just keep playing.”

“You sure? We don’t have to finish if you don’t feel like it.”

“I’m fine,” Sirius insisted. “I should have seen this coming. I think Father likes being away, honestly. I think he uses it as an excuse to avoid spending too much time with Mother.” He sighed, rolling his putter around absentmindedly in his hands. “It’s not as if I really see him when he’s in the country, anyway. During the day, he’s always in meetings with our accountants and lawyers, our chief of staff—you know, sorting out family business. And at night, he goes to the Yale Club with his friends. But I still like it when he’s around. It just doesn’t happen often.”

“Why didn’t you move over there with him?” Remus asked, curious. “Isn’t that what diplomats’ families usually do? I bet living in Istanbul for a while would’ve been really cool!”

Sirius gave him a look that chastised him for his naivete. “When he got the post, Mother made it clear she didn’t want to leave New York. I was ten, so I remember the whole thing. They fought about it for days. They locked themselves in Father’s study, but I pressed my ear up to the door. Mother just kept saying that her entire social network was here, and, well, once Grandfather got involved, that was that. We stayed in New York and Father left for Istanbul.”

“That must’ve been hard for you,” Remus murmured, casting his eyes down at his shoes and scuffing them into the fake green.

“Yeah, well, I knew there was no use arguing. Even back then, I knew that whatever Grandfather wanted, Grandfather got.”

“You know, you never talk about your grandparents on your dad’s side at all,” Remus observed. “Are they around?”

“I don’t know them,” Sirius replied. “Mother says they live in Cape Cod all year round like barbarians. Which sounds kind of nice to me, actually. Peaceful. But we don’t really see them, since we don’t really see Father. I actually sometimes wonder why Father isn’t more pissed about that. It’s like he doesn’t even care.” The avalanche of anger tumbling out on his steely words halted as his voice cracked. He paused to clear his throat. “Honestly, I don’t know what he was thinking, marrying Mother in the first place. Grandfather controls his whole life. He’s barely a part of his own family.”

A realization dawned suddenly on Remus. “Your dad isn’t in the portrait in your room.”

Sirius nodded. “Yeah, that was only for Mother’s side. Grandfather’s direct seed.”

Remus shivered. “No offense, but the obsession with bloodlines is kind of weird.”

“Right, well, I can’t wait to announce to everyone that I won’t be siring any Blacks to carry on the line,” Sirius said dryly. “I’m really hoping I can stall that conversation until after Grandfather dies. Knowing him, he’d find a way to steal my semen and artificially inseminate some European duchess to give himself the perfect great-grandkids.”

“Delightful,” Remus said acerbically. For the first time, he felt a tiny ball of animosity toward the old man growing in his stomach. “Doesn’t he realize he can’t treat you like a racehorse?”

But Sirius didn’t reply. He just let out a loud and surprisingly accurate whinny and galloped away down the strip of fake green toward the next hole on the course. It seemed that he’d had enough of this difficult conversation. So, Remus had no choice but to chase after, snickering as Sirius tossed his head and shook out his long hair like a mane.

They laughed their way through the remainder of the mini golf course, just as they had the first half, but Sirius’s usual open, playful demeanor felt sour and forced. Remus was quieter than before, too, turning it all over in his mind. It seemed that, despite his easy grins and general air of indifference, there were huge cracks in the foundation of Sirius’s idyllic life, and this was the first time Remus was seeing them. Seeing Sirius upset. Seeing him truly care about something. It left Remus feeling surprisingly tender toward him. After all, Remus knew exactly what it felt like to have a dad who let him down.

Maybe that was why, later, when they were sitting shoulder-to-shoulder on a bench in the twilight, full of hot dogs and licking the mustard from their fingers, Remus said suddenly, “You know, my dad walked out when I was seven. I barely remember him.”

Sirius was crunching up several hot dog wrappers in his hands, rolling the waxy paper around and around between his palms until it formed a dense, shiny silver ball. He refused to look at Remus, gazing instead out at the gentle purple sky. “That sucks,” he said softly. “I mean, I know that probably doesn’t even begin to describe it, but…that sucks.”

“The worst part is that he never explained why.” Remus couldn’t help the hard edge that was now creeping into his own voice. After so many years, it still wasn’t easy to talk about it. “One day, he just hugged me, said goodbye, and then never came back. So, I had to come up with my own explanations.”

Sirius glanced at him furtively. “What kinds of explanations?”

Remus scuffed his heels through the sand in front of their bench and tried to find the right words. He almost couldn’t believe he was voluntarily telling all of this to someone he barely knew, but it already felt like he’d known Sirius for much longer than a month. And besides, he wanted Sirius to know that he wasn’t alone.

“Well, when I was young, I used to imagine that he left because he was called away on an important mission—that he was a spy, or an astronaut, or an assassin. And then, when I was in high school, I blamed it all on him. I thought he must’ve done it because he was a piece of shit, the absolute worst person alive. I mean, what other possible explanation could there be for leaving your family? For not even trying to fight for them?”

“Sounds about right,” Sirius muttered.

“Well, now, I realize it’s probably not that simple,” Remus said. “I have no idea why he did it, but I’ll most likely never find out. So, I just have to tell myself that it had nothing to do with me. I’m not sure if that’s true, but it helps me sleep better at night, you know?”

Sirius sighed heavily and raked his hair back with both hands. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I do know.” He was quiet for a few minutes, fidgeting with a loose thread on his jeans. “What’s your mother like?” he finally asked.

“Oh, she’s great,” Remus said immediately, feeling a smile spread across his face at the thought of Hope. “We talk on the phone almost every day. She reads me my horoscope and I pretend to believe in it, and she absolutely loses it whenever something happens to me that matches her predictions.” He watched in the near darkness as Sirius’s expression twisted into something wistful, and then, remembering what Walburga Black was like, he backtracked hastily. “I mean, don’t get me wrong. I love my mom, but it’s no substitute for having a dad.”

“Still sounds nice, though,” Sirius whispered.

They sat together in silence, watching the last of the light sink below the horizon, their shoulders still touching. When the night had settled in around them and it was time to head back home, Remus got up from the bench first. He reached out a hand to haul Sirius to his feet and their palms brushed together. But even after Sirius stood up, neither of them made the first move to let go, and so they lingered, their fingers slightly gummy with ketchup residue and intertwined in the darkness.

“I think I owe you an apology, by the way,” Sirius murmured as they ambled down the boardwalk toward the car.

“What for?”

“For how I’ve been acting. It was insensitive. I should’ve realized sooner that my perspective was limited. Not everyone can take golf lessons as a kid. Or go to Aspen whenever they want.”

Remus was quiet for a moment. “Where is this coming from?”

“Well, after Dumbledore’s lecture today, I went home and did the John Rawls reading for this week,” Sirius said. “You know, the one where he says we should decide on the wealth distribution in our society as if we stood behind a ‘veil of ignorance.’ As if we had no personal perspective. As if our own position in society would be randomly assigned to us only after we decided on a wealth distribution, so that we couldn’t know beforehand whether we’d be at the top of the food chain or the bottom.”

Remus nodded into the darkness. “If there was a veil of ignorance, we’d create the best kind of society, one that protects the least fortunate. You’d have to consider it from all possible perspectives, because you never know—when the veil is lifted and your position is assigned, that least fortunate person could be anyone. It could be _you_.”

“Right. And that got me thinking about what it actually means to be the least fortunate. I mean, there’s more to the good life than money, and those things should be fairly distributed, too, don’t you think?”

Remus hummed, trying not to sound too skeptical. “Things like what?”

Through the hand that still held his, he felt Sirius shrug. “I dunno, a lot of things. Health. Love. Time. Good fathers. Mini golf.”

“Mini golf?” Remus repeated, amused.

“Yeah. Some of us haven’t gotten our fair share of mini golf so far in life, and it’s a shame,” Sirius said. His voice was light, but there was a hint of gloom underneath. “Turns out, I really like mini golf. And now I—I’m just wondering what else I’ve been missing out on.”

Remus felt an odd pang in his chest. “Well, if you like mini golf so much, we can go again on Friday if you want. There’s another course not too far from here, and it’s pirate-themed.”

They had now reached the car, and Remus was sorry to release Sirius’s hand as they both climbed in. In the dim light of the dashboard console, though, Sirius grinned over at him. “As amazing as pirate mini golf sounds, it’ll have to wait. I already have plans Friday. But here’s an offer for you—and before you answer, keep in mind that you’re trying out this new thing where you actually say yes when I ask you to do stuff with me.”

“Oh, am I?” Remus laughed.

“I have to go to dinner on Friday at my Uncle Ab’s house up in the hills. Come with me?”

“And meet your uncle?” Remus said, alarmed. It felt too soon. He’d already been thrown through a loop by Sirius’s mother, and he wasn’t exactly eager to repeat the experience with any other Black family relatives.

“He’s not really my uncle, just a good friend of Grandfather’s,” Sirius clarified. “But yeah, he invites me over every now and then. Grandfather probably asked him to keep an eye on me while I’m out west. It won’t be super fun, but it’ll be so much better if you’re there with me. I mean, Uncle Ab is okay, but his son Lucius is a total douchebag. He’s always trying to convince me to go into business with him.”

“You’re really selling this dinner well,” Remus said sarcastically. “How can I say no?”

“Well, Uncle Ab’s house is pretty cool, if that tempts you,” Sirius said. “Plus,” he added in an angelic voice, “I’ll be there. Isn’t that reason enough to go?”

Remus sighed. He supposed that, since Sirius had given mini golf and hot dogs a chance tonight, he should make an effort to get acquainted with Sirius’s world, too. After all, how bad could it be?

“Alright, fine,” he agreed, enjoying the smile that brightened Sirius’s face. “I’ll say yes to something. I’ll go.”


	7. Lucius Malfoy Looks Like a Blobfish

That Friday afternoon, they drove through the winding streets that climbed up into the hills, headed for Uncle Ab’s house. Sirius whipped around the narrow turns a tad too quickly, causing Remus’s heart to leap into his throat as he tried not to look down at the steep slopes below.

Finally, they turned into a long private driveway, which was partially obscured by foliage and guarded by a giant pair of ornate black gates. Gold-leaf lettering in the ironwork at the top of the gates proclaimed that they had just arrived at Malfoy Manor.

“Wait a minute,” Remus said slowly, peering up at the writing. “Malfoy? Sirius, is your Uncle Ab…”

But he didn’t have time to finish his thought, because Sirius was pulling up to a black box mounted in the driveway. He rolled down the driver’s side window, and a cool, automated female voice rang out from an invisible speaker. “Name, please?”

“Sirius Black.”

“Very good,” the automated voice intoned. “Mr. Malfoy is expecting you. Please proceed forward to the valet.”

The gates swung open smoothly and silently, and Sirius drove through.

Remus waited until they were out of earshot of the black box before he burst out, “Your Uncle Ab is Abraxas Malfoy? As in, Abraxas Malfoy, head of DraCo, the biggest tech firm in the country? As in, one of the top ten richest men in the world?”

Sirius only shrugged, keeping his eyes on the driveway ahead, but there was a shadow of a smirk creeping across his face.

“Sirius, if I had known…” Remus spluttered. He did a quick, panicked once-over of his outfit, his eyes jumping from his slightly wrinkled chinos to the brown oxfords that were scuffed but still by far his fanciest pair of shoes. His stomach sank as he caught sight of a spot on his sleeve. “Oh god, I’m pretty sure this is an old coffee stain,” he groaned, sticking his arm out for Sirius to see. “Fucking hell, I’m about to meet Abraxas Malfoy and there’s a coffee stain on my shirt. You couldn’t have given me a little heads-up?”

Sirius’s smirk had grown into his usual irreverent grin. “And miss this meltdown? No way.”

Remus whacked him on the chest. “I can’t believe this,” he grumbled. “I trusted you!”

But Sirius only continued to grin as they pulled up to the narrow walkway that led to the house. A uniformed man in white gloves was waiting to take their car keys as they climbed out. At first glance, Malfoy Manor looked similar to some of the other extravagant houses that Remus had seen on their drive up: huge, white, and modern in design, with steel beams and all-glass walls tinted for privacy. But as they continued to climb up the walkway that wound around to the other side of the structure, Remus began to hear a rushing sound that reminded him of river rapids.

“Wait, is there a…waterfall around here?” he asked, confused. This wasn’t at all the right area to find waterfalls.

Sirius nodded with an impish smile. “Around this corner,” he said. “You’ll see.”

And sure enough, as they rounded the corner, Remus saw that the far side of the house was partially cantilevered over a short slope, and a curtain of water was streaming from a gap between the first and second stories, obscuring the windows on the first floor. The waterfall sparkled in the glare of the early evening sun before tumbling down into a small pond dappled with decorative water lilies below.

Remus was floored. The waterfall looked like it was part of the house itself. He’d never seen anything like it. “Wow,” he said weakly.

“Cool, huh?” Sirius said, waggling his eyebrows. “It runs through the house, too. It’s all a closed system—the water is recycled and pumped back up from the pond down there—and the whole thing is powered by solar.”

“Well, clearly I’m not in Kansas anymore,” Remus said wryly as they walked up to the front door. Who in the world had a waterfall running through their house? And—as Sirius rang the doorbell, Remus craned his neck to peer at the small, stately white figures striding across the grass— were those _albino peacocks_ wandering around on the lawn?

Another uniformed man in white gloves answered the door. “Good evening, Mr. Black, Mr. Lupin. Welcome to Malfoy Manor. Please, follow me.”

The butler led them through a hallway and down a flight of stairs into a large, brightly lit room with minimalist furniture and two completely blank, solid white walls. Remus assumed that this was Uncle Ab’s living room, though it bore very little resemblance to Remus’s own cozy living room at home, where everything smelled like incense and the worn leather upholstery on the sagging couches was hidden by a number of colorful throw blankets that Remus’s mom had knit herself.

Sirius took a seat on one of the stiff boxy couches, and Remus followed suit. The butler left, and a minute or so later, the door opened again, and two men entered. The older one was dressed in a sleek black high-neck sweater and charcoal grey pants, his light blue eyes and well-groomed head of silver hair contrasting with his dark outfit. The younger one looked, at most, five years older than Remus, but he wore an immaculately tailored grey three-piece suit, as if he were on his way to a boardroom.

Everyone shook hands as Sirius made introductions. The older man was, of course, Abraxas Malfoy. Remus had seen his face many times on the news and in the papers. In person, though, Abraxas was slighter and shorter than Remus expected, more soft-spoken with a subtler presence. He was far from warm, and his light eyes were clever in a way that made Remus inexplicably nervous, but he wasn’t the blustering, intimidating industry titan that Remus had imagined him to be.

His son Lucius, on the other hand, seemed to do nothing but bluster.

“What’s up, bud?” Lucius asked Sirius, draping a friendly arm around him and socking him on the shoulder. Sirius gave him only a wan smile in return. “This is your friend’s first time here, isn’t it? What do you say we show him some of the Malfoy Manor magic?”

“Perhaps later, Lucius. I think we all just want to relax and catch up a bit,” Abraxas said. “Please take a seat, boys, and make yourselves comfortable. I’ll get us some drinks.”

He strode over to one of the blank white walls and pressed his thumb onto an invisible pad. Immediately, one section of the wall came to life, illuminating a touchscreen panel. The interface of the panel was just as sleek as the rest of the house, with white writing projected onto a black background. Remus couldn’t read any of it from where he was sitting, but he watched as Abraxas moved quickly, using his fingers to swipe and manipulate the objects on the screen.

“Automated bartender,” Lucius interjected, grinning at Remus. “It’s operated by our custom AI system—one of the many things we’ve set up AI to do in this house. Remind me to show you the bowling lane in the basement. The AI down there tracks the speed and arc of your throws and analyzes the data to improve your performance.”

“Sounds cool,” Remus said politely.

Abraxas looked back over his shoulder at them. “Sirius? Remus? A drink while we wait for dinner?”

“Perrier for me, please,” Sirius said.

“Me too,” Remus echoed. Somehow, he had a feeling the automated bartender wouldn’t have the drink he was really craving at the moment, a Mountain Dew. “Thank you.”

“I’ll have whatever you’re having, Father,” Lucius said sweetly.

“Macallan 18, then?”

“Why not make it the 25,” Lucius replied, throwing Sirius and Remus a boastful wink.

A minute later, another panel in the wall opened up, delivering their drinks. Lucius got to his feet to help his father carry them over, and Remus took the chance while his back was turned to pull a slight face at Sirius, who just barely rolled his eyes in return.

“You two didn’t run into the press on your way in, did you?” the elder Malfoy asked once everyone had settled in with their drinks. Sirius shook his head. “Good. Those bottom feeders have been swarming around here in record numbers lately. Fortunately, of course, they can’t get past the gate.”

“Always making news, aren’t you, Uncle Ab,” Sirius joked lightly. “What did you do this time?”

Abraxas smiled and took a sip of his scotch. “Nothing too salacious, I’m afraid. I testified at a Congressional hearing on data privacy this week, as a favor to your grandfather, and it attracted some negative media attention.”

“It didn’t go well?”

He sighed and shrugged. “You know how it is, Sirius. I simply told the truth—that collecting user data is integral to improving our products and serving our consumers. I’m not trying to win the next popularity contest.” He eyed Sirius over the rim of his glass with those light, clever eyes. “That’s all politics is, Sirius, my boy: a popularity contest. If I were you, I’d think twice before going into it.”

“Oh, I’m not going into politics,” Sirius said.

“No, he’s going to be the angel investor for DraCo’s newest venture,” Lucius cut in, smirking at Sirius as if they shared an inside joke. “You like your high-performance cars just as much as I do, isn’t that right, Sirius? What do you say we try our hand at developing racing vehicles together for Formula One?”

Sirius gave him another strained, diplomatic smile. “I wish I could, Lucius, but I’m still in college. I better limit my investments to things in my broker’s wheelhouse, until I get the time to look deeply into anything more.”

 _Broker?_ Remus repeated silently to himself, bewildered. _What person our age has a stockbroker?_

Abraxas, though, seemed impressed. “Very prudent,” he said with an approving nod. “Your grandfather would be proud.”

“Aren’t you worried about the bad press, though, Uncle Ab?” Sirius asked quickly, before Lucius could bring up any more business propositions.

“No,” the elder Malfoy said serenely. “I’m not afraid to do the unpopular thing if it’s for the greater good. And regardless, your grandfather assures me that this is routine in politics. Something happens to make the public unhappy and they make a big fuss, but inevitably the 24-hour news cycle will replenish, and they will move on to the next thing that outrages them. We experienced a slight stock drop this week, but I’m sure we will recover shortly.”

“The public has such a brief attention span,” Lucius added smugly. “In some ways, that’s what makes our company so successful. We’ve found ways to monetize that.”

“How ethical,” Remus muttered under his breath.

“Now, Lucius, that is no conversation for polite company,” Abraxas admonished his son. “And I wouldn’t put it that way, in any case. We are filling a need in the market.”

Remus quirked his lips. The more he listened to Abraxas Malfoy talk, the less he liked him, though he couldn’t put a finger on why. The elder Malfoy just felt vaguely dangerous. If Lucius reminded Remus of a big-headed bull in a china shop, then his father reminded him of a snake in the grass.

“In any case,” Abraxas continued, “I’m sure our guests didn’t come here to listen to us talk business. Sirius, my boy—tell me, what’s new in your life?”

Sirius shrugged. “Remus,” he said casually.

The elder Malfoy’s eyebrows rose by only a hair, reminding Remus for a brief moment of Walburga Black. “Is that so?” he asked. He turned to Remus then. “Well, Remus, you must be very special, if Sirius here likes you so much. Why don’t you tell me about yourself?”

Remus opened his mouth and found that it was completely dry with nerves. He took a hasty sip of Perrier and cleared his throat, then reviewed the major points of his life—from Portland, majoring in English, with aspirations to become a writer—rather unenthusiastically. He wanted to get this part over with quickly, because he knew he wouldn’t seem impressive or remarkable in any way.

To his surprise, though, the elder Malfoy listened with interest and even asked Remus a couple follow-up questions about what types of stories he most liked to write.

“Character studies, mostly,” Remus said. “I like writing about interesting people.”

Those light eyes were studying him closely now. “I see,” Abraxas said softly. “And where do you find these interesting people?”

“Just, um, around, I guess,” he stammered. Remus didn’t ever really enjoy talking about himself, but he enjoyed doing so with a billionaire tech mogul even less. It was definitely time to change the subject. “I—uh—I like your home,” he offered. “The waterfall is amazing. And Sirius says it runs through the house?”

“Yes,” Abraxas said, pointing toward the ceiling. Remus hadn’t thought to look directly up, but the ceiling above him was indeed inlaid with narrow glass panels, through which he could see flowing water subtly illuminated by a number of colored lights. “I had the waterways built into the house when I designed it a number of years ago. It helps my creativity to be surrounded by movement, dynamism, kinetic energy. It was a challenging bit of engineering, but I had an excellent team and they managed it in the end.”

“But if it’s above us now…” Remus murmured to himself.

“That’s right,” Lucius said with another smug grin. He got to his feet, walked over to the other blank wall, and thumbed another pad. With both hands, he made a dramatic swiping motion across the screen, and all of a sudden, as if a set of invisible white curtains had been pulled aside, the blank wall became a window. Water was tumbling down from above, blurring their view of the yard beyond. They were sitting right underneath the waterfall.

“That’s awesome,” Remus said honestly.

“Told you Uncle Ab’s house was cool,” Sirius said, grinning and giving him a playful little shove.

Remus was uncomfortable with how closely Abraxas watched this exchange between them, but before he could dwell on it, the door to the living room opened again and the butler appeared to announce that dinner was ready.

Mercifully, the meal did not last too long. Before dessert was served, one of Abraxas’s assistants called his emergency line and he had to excuse himself to his home office. Sirius and Remus finished eating at the table with Lucius alone, and afterward, Lucius offered to give them the full tour of the house before they left. They accepted, but, in Remus’s opinion, even trying out the smart bowling alley in the basement and following the mesmerizing flow of the colored water through the upper levels of the house was not quite worth tolerating Lucius’s unctuous company. With his father gone, he somehow became even worse, cracking jokes about how much he liked Sirius’s cousin and asking Sirius to give him her phone number.

“Sorry, but Narcissa is very private,” Sirius said, his voice straining again to stay polite. “She’d kill me if I gave her number to anyone.”

“Okay, well, just see if she’s interested, then,” Lucius insisted. “Can’t hurt to ask, right?”

Sirius shrugged amicably enough, but after that, Remus noticed that he walked a little faster on their tour, probably hoping to escape before Lucius could bring up his cousin again. 

“I see what you mean now about Lucius being a dick,” Remus said to Sirius as soon as they pulled away from the house. “Does he _ever_ shut up?”

“No,” Sirius replied. “But even if he did, it wouldn’t help. He’s still got such a punch-able face.”

Remus snorted. “You know, he kind of reminds me of this really ugly fish Lily showed me once. It was in one of her biology textbooks. Let me see if I can find a picture.” As the black iron gates swung open for them in the twilight, Remus pulled up an image on his phone and held it out to Sirius, grinning. “Alright, look, here it is. Doesn’t Lucius Malfoy look like a blobfish?”

Sirius glanced over at Remus’s phone. One look at the gooey, shapeless, hideous fish on the screen, and he began to howl in laughter. He laughed so hard that, as he took the sharp turn out of the Malfoys’ private driveway, he almost didn’t notice the abandoned bicycle lying ahead of them in the road, nor the prone, stirring body of a fallen cyclist lying next to it.

“Whoa! Watch out!” Remus shouted, pointing through the front windshield, and Sirius slammed on the brakes.

They skidded to a halt less than ten yards from the cyclist. Sirius threw the car into park and jumped out, Remus not far behind. “Hey! Are you alright?” Sirius called out as they approached him at a run. “Can you get up? Do you need me to call an ambulance for you?”

The cyclist first raised his head and then pushed himself into a sitting position on the road, peering at them in the dim twilight. “Ah, it’s Sirius Black,” he said, a grin of recognition spreading slowly across his face.

“Yes,” Sirius said, frowning. “Are you alright? Are you injured?”

The cyclist sprang to his feet with such agility that it was clear he was not. “Never been better, actually,” he said, throwing them a jaunty wink. “Well, now, this is very interesting. Why did Senator Black’s little prince pay a visit to Malfoy Manor tonight?”

“What?” Sirius asked, bewildered. “Do I know you?”

The cyclist ignored him. “Mike, where are you?” he called out loudly. “Are you getting this? It’s Sirius Black.”

There was a rustle from the thick foliage that lined the side of the road, and Remus whipped around just in time to see another man emerging from the shadows there. Remus felt his heart pounding in his ears as he realized that this situation had all the trappings of an ambush. They were being mugged. Remus didn’t have anything of value, of course, but the TAG Heuer watch on Sirius’s arm had to be worth a thousand dollars at least.

He balled up his fists and prepared to fight—a rather ridiculous idea, seeing as he’d never been in a fistfight in his entire life. But the next thing he knew, a bright flashbulb went off in his face and his vision was filled with nothing but splotches of yellow and green.

“Sirius Black… _and a friend_ ,” Remus heard the man named Mike say as he snapped several more photographs. “Who’s your friend, Sirius?”

“What is going on here?” Sirius demanded, his voice sounding firmer and more authoritative than Remus had ever heard it. “Who sent you?”

“How about you give us a story? Tell us what you were up to tonight,” the first man replied, reaching into his pocket for some kind of recording device and shoving it under Sirius’s nose. It was finally beginning to dawn on Remus that they _were_ being ambushed—not by muggers, but by the paparazzi. “Were you here on behalf of your granddad, Sirius? Or are you kick-starting your own political career early?”

“Fuck off,” Sirius spat. “What you’re doing here isn’t right.”

Mike circled around them, snapping what sounded like five photographs a second. “Planning to follow in your grandfather’s footsteps, Sirius? Trying to land yourself a seat in the New York state senate next year? Abraxas Malfoy would be a hell of an endorsement.”

“I said, fuck off,” Sirius said loudly, pointing a furious finger at each of the men in turn. “This whole charade is disgraceful. You better leave before Uncle Ab finds out you’re waylaying his guests like this.”

“It’s a public street,” Mike told him with a shrug. “We’re not on his property.”

Sirius whirled on his heel and began stalking back to the car. “Fine, stay, then. But you’re not getting a story out of me. Come on, Remus, let’s go.”

Remus blinked away the last of the splotches in his vision and followed, ignoring calls of, “Remus! Who are you, Remus?”

Remus had barely closed the car door before Sirius floored the gas pedal, veered around the two men, and took off down the street in an angry squeal of rubber. Sirius didn’t say another word as they plummeted down the winding streets and out of the hills. It wasn’t until he’d run two red lights that Remus ventured, in a quiet voice, “Maybe you should pull over until you calm down. You’re going to get us killed.”

There was a brief pause, and Remus waited with bated breath to see whether he’d made a grave mistake. Sirius was already furious, and the idea of anyone else telling him how to drive his beloved car was probably not going to make him any happier. For a moment, Remus thought he might have just started their first fight, but then Sirius let out a long breath through his nose and obeyed.

“You’re right, Remus, I’m sorry,” he said once they were stopped on the side of the road. He huffed and let his hands fall heavily on the steering wheel in exasperation. “God, the nerve of those people!”

“Your uncle did say there was press crawling around outside,” Remus pointed out with a small smile. “We just didn’t realize they’d be literally crawling on the ground.”

Sirius didn’t smile back. “I’m sorry you got caught in the middle of that,” he sighed.

Remus shrugged. The whole evening had been glamorous, but in a bizarre, nightmarish kind of way, so a paparazzi ambush in the street actually felt rather on-brand. “Are you used to it?” he asked. “Does it happen to you all the time?”

“No,” Sirius said firmly. “I’d go out of my mind if it did. I think it was just wrong-place, wrong-time. They were there to spy on Uncle Ab, not me.”

“They recognized you, though.”

Sirius scoffed. “That doesn’t mean anything—it’s their job to memorize the faces of anyone remotely important.” A moment later, he seemed to regret his tone and cast an uncertain glance over at Remus. “I’m sorry, that didn’t come out right. And I’m sorry I lost my temper back there. I just hate predatory practices like that, and I didn’t want them to ruin our night.”

Remus fiddled with his seatbelt. “You know, you don’t have to apologize so much all the time,” he told Sirius gently. “You’re always apologizing for everything.”

“I am? I didn’t realize I apologize more than the average person.”

“You do. A lot more.”

Sirius paused to think this over. “Maybe I do,” he mused. “Force of habit, I guess. At home, I was always doing the wrong thing or saying the wrong thing, forgetting my manners, and—”

“The fastest way to get your mom off your back was to apologize,” Remus guessed. “So, now, you apologize preemptively for things nobody’s even blamed you for yet.”

Sirius cleared his throat awkwardly but said nothing.

“Look, don’t worry about what happened back there,” Remus continued. He put his fingers over Sirius’s hand, which was resting on the gear shift between them. “It gave me a scare, but there was no harm done, okay? You can relax around me. I’m not always looking for someone to blame.”

The tension in Sirius’s shoulders eased, and he intertwined his fingers fully with Remus’s. “Sounds too good to be true,” he joked.

Remus could only shake his head. Sirius had such a charmed, pristine life, but nobody had ever shown him that people would still like him even if he wasn’t perfect, even if he made mistakes or things went wrong.

Well, Remus would be the one to show him now.

He and Sirius were sitting mere inches apart in the dark, with only the streetlights overhead to illuminate their shadowy faces. They were already holding hands. It wouldn’t be that difficult to simply lean across the gear shift and…

Remus had never kissed anyone before, so he wasn’t quite sure how to do it. He kept his movements slow and careful, trying to figure out what felt right. As he tipped his head and began to lean in, he saw Sirius’s beautiful stormy eyes widen and felt him squeeze their interlocked fingers tightly. Their faces grew closer, and, out of instinct, Remus closed his eyes. His nose glided gently against Sirius’s for a couple seconds before Sirius crossed the remaining bit of space between them, and their lips met.

The kiss was unsure but tender, with neither of them daring to move much. When Remus drew back a moment later, both of them were smiling sheepishly. “I like you, you know,” he whispered.

Sirius’s face lit up. “I like you, too.”

And, so, despite everything Remus had faced in the past few hours, he felt that the night wasn’t ruined after all. In fact, he was pretty damn sure he’d just salvaged it.


	8. Peter Pettigrew Gets the Job

The next morning, Remus woke up early but didn’t leave his bed. Instead, he stayed under the blankets with his eyes closed, blissfully replaying the kiss over and over again in his mind, until there was a knock on the door.

“Come in,” he called, feeling a twinge at being pulled out of his daydream.

The door swung open and someone poked their head in. It was Blue, and she looked apprehensive.

Remus forced himself to stop thinking about the kiss and sat up in bed. It was very unlike Blue to be worried, unless something was seriously wrong. “What’s the matter?” he asked her. “Is everything okay?”

She didn’t answer immediately. Instead, she swept across the room in her long, colorful skirts and took a seat on the edge of Remus’s bed, holding out her phone to him. “Have you seen this yet, Remus? Mary just sent it to me.”

Remus rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and peered at the phone screen. It showed a clip from some video website or another, not the sort of thing he usually spent his time watching. “I don’t think so,” he said, frowning. “What is it?”

Blue shrugged, a strange expression of mingled amusement and pity on her face. “You better just take a look.”

She shifted closer to Remus so that they could watch together, then pressed play. The video clip seemed to be a round-up of the latest news from some crappy tabloid website, the kind of thing they released on their social media accounts in hopes of drumming up followers. It spliced together paparazzi photos and video footage with cheesy special effects, all set to the commentary of an obnoxious male voiceover. Remus was just about to ask why this video had anything to do with him, when he heard Sirius’s name.

“ _In other news, Sirius Black was spotted last night leaving tech mogul Abraxas Malfoy’s home with an unknown male companion_. _The young Black heir is clearly not the cute little kid he used to be…_ ”

The video flashed first to an old, sunny photo of a round-cheeked Sirius, perhaps seven or eight years old, wearing a navy-blue blazer and sitting next to his grandfather at what looked like the Kentucky Derby. Then, the image shifted to a much darker, grainier one. Remus’s stomach gave a sick lurch of recognition as he saw himself standing in the street next to Sirius, both of them ghostly pale in the camera flash and looking wide-eyed and startled. It was one of the photos taken outside the Malfoy Manor gates the night before.

“ _…as it seems he’s developed quite a nasty attitude! But don’t worry, Sirius—puberty is challenging, even for the best of us. Hope you outgrow your teenage angst soon!”_

As various photos from the ambush drifted across the screen, each less flattering than the last, the narration ended and the audio track clicked over to a recording of Sirius’s voice calling out, “I said, fuck off!”

Remus cringed. But then, it got worse. To Remus’s horror, whoever made the video had set the recording of Sirius on a loop, repeating it over and over again, backed by a ghastly hip-hop beat that created a perverse sort of remix: “Fuck off! Fuck off! Fu-fu-fu-fu-fu-fuck off! I said, fuck off! Fuck off! Fu-fu-fu-fu-fuck off!”

“You have to admit, it’s kind of catchy, isn’t it?” Blue said with a small smile as the clip ended.

Remus buried his face in his hands. “Shit,” he moaned against his palms, drawing out the syllable until it died like a croak in his dry throat. “Sirius didn’t do anything wrong, you know. They’re twisting it around to make him look bad.”

Blue gave a hum of sympathy. “I guess that’s the thing about being semi-famous, isn’t it? ‘Old-money heir is a loose cannon’ makes for a better hook than ‘ordinary college boy visits uncle.’ I’m sure Sirius is used to it. But are _you_ okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be?”

She raised her eyebrows, looking skeptical. “I dunno, I’d be pretty freaked out if I were going viral on the Internet as someone’s male companion.” She tried unsuccessfully to suppress a giggle. “What does that even mean, ‘male companion’? Hopefully not, like, an escort.”

Remus shrugged. He wasn’t too worried about himself; his name hadn’t made it into the video, nobody knew who he was anyway, and people tended to forget him as easily as they met him. The reason he made a good writer, after all, was because he blended into the background. He was ordinary in every way. But Sirius, on the other hand…

“You know, Sirius’s family is usually super mysterious and private,” Blue mused, twirling the end of her long braid around her finger. “You rarely hear about them unless it’s through official press releases. I guess that’s why people are jumping all over this story. That video was only uploaded five hours ago, and it already has a million views.”

Remus sighed, rubbing his hands over his face again. “I better give Sirius a call. I have a feeling this isn’t going to be good for him.”

Blue got to her feet, rearranging her skirts. “Okay, well, I’ll give you some privacy, then.” She paused, still looking at Remus with an odd expression on her face. “How about I make you an omelet for breakfast? I still have some tomatoes left from the last crop of the year.”

Remus tried to give her a reassuring smile. “That’d be nice. Thanks, Blue.”

He waited until the door swung shut behind her before dialing Sirius’s number. The phone barely rang once before Sirius picked up. “Hey, Remus,” he said quickly. “I can’t really talk right now.”

“So, you saw it, too.”

The heavy sigh on the other end of the line was all the confirmation Remus needed.

“You alright?” Remus asked. “Want me to come over or anything?”

There was a long pause before Sirius said, his voice somewhat stilted, “I’ve got a pretty packed day today.”

Remus bit his lip, feeling hurt. Why was Sirius brushing him off? Was he embarrassed to be caught with Remus in the video? Or, even worse, did he regret their kiss last night? Was he going to pretend like it never happened?

But just as Remus was beginning to tumble down a steep panic spiral, Sirius spoke again. “It looks like I’ll be taking meetings at the Central for most of the afternoon,” he said with another sigh. “Come by later and find me there?”

Mystified, Remus agreed, and Sirius hung up without further explanation.

Afterwards, Remus lingered in bed a while longer, but he couldn’t go back to daydreaming. He was too worried. He couldn’t stop himself from Googling the Black family on his phone and scrolling anxiously through the pages and pages of prim, proper high society photos and official press releases. It was just as Blue had said—their media presence was squeaky clean. Well, until now. The video of Sirius’s foul mouth was by far the top hit on any search involving his name.

Feeling more agitated than ever, Remus dragged himself out of bed and changed out of his pajamas. Just as he was about to head downstairs, though, his bedroom door opened again and Lily walked in, carrying a plate of eggs and two steaming mugs of coffee.

“What are you doing here?” Remus said, surprised.

“Saw the video this morning and figured you might want someone to talk to,” she replied, not smiling. “Blue sent me up with your breakfast. Let’s go out on the balcony?”

Remus followed her through the sliding door and sat in one of the folding chairs on the tiny balcony, balancing his plate on his knees while he ate. Lily leaned against the metal railing, carefully avoiding the patches of rust and peeling paint, and sipped her coffee. They were silent for a few minutes, with only the sounds of the distant traffic filling the air, but they didn’t really need to speak. After spending so much time together, Remus and Lily were rather good at communicating silently, and given the grave look on her face now, it wasn’t hard for Remus to figure out what Lily was thinking.

“It wasn’t his fault, you know,” Remus muttered, finally breaking their silence. He knew Lily already had her reservations about Sirius, and this whole fiasco would only make her more skeptical.

Lily sighed. “I didn’t say it was, Remus. What actually happened last night?”

Between sips of coffee, Remus told her everything, from the extravagant Malfoy house to the ambush and, finally, the end of the night. In spite of it all, he felt a grin instinctively split his face when he revealed that he and Sirius had kissed. “I know it looks bad, but I had fun,” he finished. “I always have fun with Sirius, no matter what we’re doing.”

Lily shook her head. “Well, now that fun is up on the internet for everyone to see. How are you feeling? Are you okay?”

Remus rolled his eyes, feeling his chest tighten in frustration. “First Blue, and now you, too? Why is everyone so worried about me?” he asked irritably. “It’s not that bad for me. I’m more worried about Sirius. He’s probably going to get in a lot of trouble for this.”

“Maybe,” Lily said with a shrug. “But I have a feeling he’ll bounce back just fine. He can probably bounce back from anything. But you, on the other hand…”

Looking suddenly uncomfortable, she trailed off and took another sip of coffee, gazing out over the yard.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Remus asked, his cheeks flaring with heat. He was barely controlling his anger now and seeing Lily’s discomfort was only making him angrier. Clearly, she was thinking something horrible about him, something so horrible she couldn’t bear to say it out loud. “Do you think I’m fragile or something?”

“No,” she protested. “That’s not what I meant.”

“Well, what, then?” Remus said loudly, dropping his breakfast plate on the ground with a clatter and rising to his feet.

His heart was pounding, and he felt vaguely sick. This was the closest that he and Lily had ever come to having a fight. He hated himself for raising his voice at her, but he couldn’t help it. He’d been so excited to tell her about his first kiss, but she hadn’t seemed happy for him, hadn’t even batted an eye at the news. She was supposed to be his best friend, but she wasn’t being supportive at all.

He took Lily by the arm, trying to get her to look him in the eye. “What did you mean, then?” he demanded again.

Lily’s face was red when she finally swung around to confront him. “What I mean,” she said, her voice tense, “is that, in a few years, you’ll have a career and a life where you’ll want people to take you seriously. And that video of you will still be out there. Hopefully, things will blow over before your name gets attached to it, but what if it doesn’t, Remus? What if something like this happens again? Do you really want to be known as some ill-behaved rich boy’s plaything?”

Remus let out a furious, indignant noise. “That’s not fair! That’s not how it is with Sirius, and you know it!”

“But it’s what people will think,” Lily said, setting her jaw. “Don’t you want to be seen as a serious writer someday?”

“It’s just one mistake,” Remus shot back. “People make mistakes all the time, you know. Not everyone is as unforgiving as you.” He turned away from her and walked to the other side of the balcony, crossing his arms. “Honestly, it makes it really hard to be your friend sometimes.”

Lily didn’t say anything for a while. When she finally spoke again, her voice was shaking, and Remus could tell she was crying. “I know I don’t have a lot of friends,” she whispered. “I know people find me kind of difficult.”

Remus refused to turn around, glaring hard down into the yard next door. “I don’t find you difficult,” he muttered. “I just wish you’d be happy for me.”

“Please don’t be mad,” Lily said quietly. “I’m just watching out for you. Somebody should, and I bet Sirius isn’t. I bet he’s too busy trying to clean up his own mess. But think about it, will you? In terms of building a career, being taken seriously—he doesn’t have to worry about that, does he? He’ll be fine no matter what happens. But you won’t.”

Remus swallowed hard and uncrossed his arms. As ugly as Lily’s words were, a small part of him recognized that there _was_ some truth in them. “I know,” he sighed. “You don’t think I’m aware that Sirius and I are in different positions? But this is my choice, and I’m happy with it right now, and—and as my best friend, I just thought you’d be a little more supportive.”

He felt Lily’s hand on his shoulder, and he allowed her to spin him around and wrap him in a tight hug. “You’re right,” she said, wedging her face into his chest, her tears damp on his t-shirt. “You’re totally right. I’m sorry, Remus. I jumped ahead with all my concerns when I should’ve taken some time to just be happy for you.” She drew back from the hug in a flurry of red hair, her face animated with a sudden realization. “You had your first kiss last night!”

“I did,” Remus confirmed with a small smile.

“Shit, I’m so sorry! I want to hear about it, I swear. How can I make it up to you?”

Remus thought for a second. “Well, I’m about to go meet Sirius at the Central. Want to come? Maybe if you get to know him, you’ll feel better about all of this.”

Lily smiled and nodded. “Sure. And you can tell me all about the kiss on the walk there.”

They made their way downstairs. While Lily went into the bathroom to wash her face and get rid of any sign that she’d been crying, Remus sat at the kitchen table and drank more coffee. He sorely needed it. His head hurt; too much had happened in the past 24 hours, giving him what felt like an emotional hangover. Although he was relieved it was over, his small fight with Lily had left him raw and drained. And he still didn’t know what was going on with Sirius.

Two cups of coffee later, they left the house. On the walk, he and Lily chatted as if nothing had happened, and so by the time they entered the student union, Remus was feeling more like himself again, if a little tender. He scanned the busy tables packed with students until he finally spotted Sirius at a table alone, surrounded by manila folders and talking on his phone. He looked frazzled, frowning and running his free hand through his hair every few seconds.

Remus felt Lily tugging on his sleeve. “Look, I think James is waving at us,” she said, pointing to a spot a few tables over from Sirius, where James Potter was indeed gesturing wildly at them, a broad grin on his face. “Should we go over?”

A smirk tugged at the corner of Remus’s lips as he noted the careful, measured nonchalance in Lily’s voice. “Sure,” he said.

When they reached him, James immediately got to his feet and shook Lily’s hand. “It’s nice to see you again, Lily. How’ve you been?”

“Oh, um, fine, thanks,” Lily stammered, surprised by his good manners.

“And Remus!” James reached out and gave Remus a friendly clap on the shoulder. “I was under strict instructions from Sirius to keep an eye out for you, and to let you know that it’s okay to interrupt him, no matter how busy he seems.”

They all glanced at Sirius, who was still on the phone, now with his eyes closed in frustration and his fist knotted in his long dark hair.

“He looks pretty stressed,” Remus said skeptically. “You’re sure he wants me to go over there? What’s this all about?”

James shrugged. “No idea. I just follow the orders—I don’t make them.”

Lily knit her eyebrows. “Want me to come with you?” she asked Remus.

Remus looked from James to Lily and back again. If Remus could trust his ability to communicate with Lily silently, then he knew the answer she wanted. The changes in her were subtle: her green eyes, usually razor-sharp, were a bit unfocused, and there was just a hint of pink on the tips of her ears, mostly hidden by her hair. James, on the other hand... Remus didn’t need a special connection with him to read him like a book. His whole face was lit up like a Christmas tree, his eyes large and eager behind his round glasses.

“No, I should go alone,” Remus said, trying his best to disguise his smile. “Will you be okay staying here?”

“Yes, I think so,” Lily said very quietly.

“Great—see you in a bit, then.” Chuckling to himself, Remus turned away and headed in Sirius’s direction. As he approached, he could hear Sirius’s phone conversation. He was speaking to someone who, it was clear, was peppering him with questions.

“No, I haven’t settled on anyone yet. I haven’t found anyone I like. I’ve got a million interviews lined up today, so I’ll let you know when I— … No, thank you. I told you, I want to hire my own staff… You know who Remus is, Mother. He’s my tutor, remember? … Great, so you and Uncle Ab talk about my sex life, that’s good to know… Oh, for god’s sake, Mother, I don’t know whether we’re dating, we haven’t really talked about it—”

Remus felt his eyes go wide as he realized what he was overhearing. He cleared his throat loudly, and Sirius’s head shot up.

“Look, I have to go,” he said hastily into the phone, gesturing with his other hand for Remus to take the seat next to him. “I’ll keep you updated, okay? Bye.”

Remus sat, trying his best to hide his embarrassment. Somehow, he’d walked into the conversation at the worst time possible.

Amazingly, though, Sirius didn’t seem embarrassed. He tossed his phone down onto the table with a thump and turned to Remus with a wry grin. “Hello,” he said, sweeping his arm out in a grand sarcastic gesture. “Welcome to the worst day of my life.”

“What’s going on?” Remus asked, seizing the opportunity to paper over any remaining awkwardness.

“Interviews,” Sirius said wearily. “After that video released this morning, Mother was obviously not happy. Says I need to get a PR rep to do damage control. She wanted to hire one for me, but I told her I was going to find someone on my own. I want someone who works for me, not for her.”

“Smart,” Remus murmured, still trying to process everything. “So, these folders…”

“Resumes, from a PR firm in town that my crazy cousin Bellatrix used awhile back. She loves them, so I called the firm and they’re sending me a bunch of candidates to interview today.”

“Why are you meeting them here?” Remus asked, glancing around at the students chatting and studying around them. “Isn’t the Central a little…public?”

Sirius shrugged. “After what happened, I figured I shouldn’t really be giving out my home address. If it gets leaked, I’m asking for trouble.”

Remus hummed his agreement. “How are the interviews going so far?”

“Like shit,” Sirius said cheerfully. “The last three have all been duds.” He shuffled through a few file folders and pulled out three headshots. “Evan Rosier, Antonin Dolohov, Thorfinn Rowle. They’ve all droned on and on either about how they’ve worked for my family before, or how much they _want_ to work for my family. Not exactly the qualities I’m looking for.”

Remus picked up one of the headshots and examined it. The man had dark hair and a long, twisted face. “This one looks kind of sinister, doesn’t he?” He squinted at the name printed at the bottom. “Dolohov.”

“That’s the one who wouldn’t shut up about how much he loved Bella,” Sirius said, rolling his eyes. “Anyone who gets along with Bellatrix is _not_ going to get along with me.”

Remus decided this wasn’t the moment to pry further. “Who’s your next interview?”

Sirius slid another folder over to him. “This one—Peter Pettigrew.” He checked the clock on his phone. “He should be here any minute, actually. Want to stick around for it?”

Remus shrugged. “Sure, if you could use a second set of eyes.” He opened Pettigrew’s file and flipped idly through the pages. From his headshot, the PR agent looked young, barely older than Remus himself, with watery blue eyes and a pudgy face.

As Remus scanned through Pettigrew’s resume, Sirius elbowed him in the gut. “Hey,” he said in an undertone, sounding excited, “it looks like James and Lily are getting along over there, aren’t they?”

Remus glanced over. Lily was facing away from them, but Remus could see James sitting across the corner of the table from her, his hand on her arm as he told a joke that Remus was too far away to hear. Remus saw Lily’s shoulders shake with laughter, and she made no move to shrug off James’s hand, either. “Wow,” he murmured. “I guess they are.”

A few moments later, Sirius sat up straighter in his seat and said, “I think that’s the guy. He just walked in.”

Remus followed his gaze across the room and watched as Peter Pettigrew approached them. The PR agent was dressed in a rumpled black suit that was a size too big, and he looked a little sweaty, as if he’d just jogged from the parking garage to the Central in the midafternoon heat. Remus sympathized; he, too, got sweaty when he was nervous.

After the requisite introductions and niceties, in which Remus shook Pettigrew’s hand and discovered that his palms were just as sweaty as the rest of him, they all took their seats again. Sirius regarded Pettigrew across the table with a level gaze, his grey eyes serious and appraising. “So, Peter. I need someone to handle my affairs—why should I hire you?”

Just as he had the previous night, Remus again noticed how Sirius’s voice changed from his usual, easygoing tone to something stronger, more authoritative. Remus couldn’t explain why, but he kind of liked it. It had this wonderful, ineffable quality that sent a frisson of pleasure up his spine. He liked that when Sirius spoke, people listened. He liked the idea of having a boyfriend who knew how to take care of business.

Boyfriend? _That_ thought sent another happy shiver up Remus’s spine. But this wasn’t the time to mull it over. He forced his attention back to the task at hand.

“Well, I just started at the firm,” Pettigrew was saying, his nose twitching. “You’d be my first client, so you’d have my undivided attention. Any time of the day or night—if you call, I’ll be there.”

Sirius raised his eyebrows. “Your first client?” he repeated. “Do you have any other PR experience? My family is expecting me to hire someone who knows what they’re doing.”

“Who’s your family?” Pettigrew asked.

Sirius froze. “You don’t know?”

Pettigrew froze, too, as if afraid that he’d said the wrong thing. “Um, maybe,” he tried to backtrack. “I’m not the best with celebrities—there are so many of them, it’s hard to keep track—and I’m actually in the firm’s corporate division, but since this was so last minute and I don’t have a client load yet, they sent me here—”

Remus watched as a delighted smile grew slowly on Sirius’s face, and he suspected that he knew what was coming next.

“Don’t worry, it’s fine,” Sirius cut in, interrupting Pettigrew’s ongoing stammering. “It doesn’t matter. You’re hired.”

“W-what?” Pettigrew said, startled.

“I said, you’re hired! Peter Pettigrew, you got the job!” Sirius rose to his feet and Pettigrew hurried to do the same. They shook hands, Sirius grinning broadly and Pettigrew looking thunderstruck. Remus figured this was probably the fastest and easiest interview the agent had ever experienced. “You start today,” Sirius continued. “I have a situation I need handled. If you Google it, you’ll see what I mean.”

“Yes, sir,” Pettigrew squeaked. “Thank you for the opportunity.”

After Pettigrew scampered off, Sirius let out a sigh of relief and turned to Remus. “Well, what do you think? Did I make a good choice?”

Remus shrugged. “He’s a little skittish, I guess, but he seems harmless enough. And he won’t be under your mom’s control. That’s the most important thing, right?”

Sirius nodded. “Right. And yeah, I dunno—I just have a good feeling about the guy.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! If you've liked this so far, kudos and comments would be so appreciated (I reply to each and every comment).
> 
> And for much more canon Wolfstar, check out my Marauders series [Brothers and Bones](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1943104)!


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